Want Dallas to get to the bottom of dog cruelty cases? Be at Dowdy Ferry Saturday
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Animal advocates concerned about the dumping of dogs — dead and alive — on Dowdy Ferry Road have made and painted 91 crosses for an event Saturday to raise awareness about the problem. (Stephanie Timko)
Do you believe in zero tolerance for animal abusers? Then it’s time you paid a visit to Dowdy Ferry Road in southeast Dallas. That goes double for Dallas’ elected officials and highest-paid City Hall managers.
Related
- Dallas Animal Services’ response to tragic dog dumping
- When it comes to animal welfare, Dallas feels more Third World than world-class
- Two stories of abandoned dogs show what we’re up against at Dowdy Ferry
There’s no better time to visit than 9 a.m. this Saturday, when animal advocates will set in place 91 handmade crosses, each of them symbolizing one of the dead animals they have found dumped there since Aug. 1.
Those 91 corpses break down like so: 64 dead dogs, two dead cats, two dead horses, six dead goats, two dead sheep, three slaughtered cows, one dead deer, one dead pig, seven bags of dead roosters and skeletons of three other animals that couldn’t be identified.
The dumping grounds — and site of the Saturday event – are just south of Interstate 20 on Dowdy Ferry. Ironically, the site is less than a mile from the lovely Great Trinity Forest Gateway Park at Dowdy Ferry and Interstate 20, an amenity the city rightfully crows about. But walk a few blocks on down Dowdy Ferry and you’re likely to stumble over dead animals.
Saturday’s event, spearheaded by six animal advocates, is the first organized effort to focus specifically on the dumped dogs. After the placing of the crosses and discussion about why Dowdy Ferry has become the final resting place of so many animals, the advocates will fan out into the surrounding neighborhoods with information, printed in English and Spanish, alerting residents of several points:
1. The SPCA is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to an animal cruelty arrest and conviction in the Dowdy Ferry-Teagarden area.
2. Crime Stoppers is offering up to $1,500 for information leading to an arrest for illegal dumping. (The overall dumping problem — of furniture, of excess construction materials, of you-name-it — is a longstanding one. Council member Erik Wilson has worked to get more city resources devoted to the problem. But catching any of the dumpers — whether dumpers of dogs or of property — has been slow work.)
3. All animals belonging to residents in the area around Dowdy Ferry, which is the 75217 ZIP code, are eligible for free spay and neuter services through Big Fix for Big D and, in some cases, for reduced-cost vaccinations.
Now about those 91 dead animals. As I wrote several weeks ago, no protocol exists for exactly who is in charge of these cases and no animal crimes unit exists within the police or sheriff’s departments. So individuals in various office continue to scramble with each dead-dog report, doing their best in a piecemeal fashion to get to the bottom of cases.
The cause of death in the dog-dumping cases — based on first-person accounts as well as limited investigations and necropsies — falls into one of three categories. (Warning: disturbing photos below — although I selected the least gruesome. Others are much worse.)
First are the unwanted dogs dumped at Dowdy Ferry to fend for themselves. All too often they wind up run over or killed by another animal.
People have some cockamamie notion that it’s more humane to dump a dog than take it to the shelter. But these animals aren’t equipped to survive in the woods or to navigate heavy and fast-moving traffic.
I wrote here about the sweet dumped dogs that sit by the roadside waiting for their owners to return. As they become increasingly anxious, they begin to approach cars as they drive by. That’s how so many of them get hit. I’ve seen rescuers open their car doors to investigate dogs on the roadside and the pitiful creatures actually jump into their car before the occupants can get out.
The cause of death for these dogs may be “accident/hit by car,” but the tragedy is that they were left out there to begin with. Far better to have taken them to Dallas Animal Services, where they have a chance at adoption.
According to a necropsy, this pup died of parvovirus.
The second category are the dogs that died of natural causes at another location and then were dumped, like trash, in this remote area.
For example, two black lab puppies were found Nov. 2, wrapped in heavy sheeting. According to a necropsy, they died of parvovirus, a highly contagious viral disease that leads to a slow, painful death due to growing dehydration.
Parvovirus is easily preventable by vaccination. These two puppies, one of them pictured here, clearly were never vaccinated — just allowed to die and then dumped like unwanted waste.
Or consider the Husky found Sept. 7; turns out he died of parasitic pneumonitis – an invasion of parasites in the bronchi, resulting in pneumonia.
This Husky, found with his back legs bound, died of parasitic pneumonitis, according to a necropsy.
According to veterinarians, a pet doesn’t die of parasitic pneumonitis unless he has been neglected to the point of death. If an owner had been paying attention to the Husky, almost certainly he would have spotted symptoms of lethargy, loss of appetite, a deep cough and labored breathing.
Also consider that the Husky’s legs were trussed up as if the dog was just a piece of meat.
While these three dogs apparently died of “natural causes,” no one would argue they were well cared for while they were alive.
The third category are the dogs that show signs of abuse and neglect; their quality of life seems to have been abysmal.
Both ears of this pit were cut into the skull and his back haunches were dotted with puncture wounds.
One of the most shocking cases I’ve seen is the one that led Dallas resident Stephanie Timko to get involved in this gruesome work. On Oct. 17, not long after she began focusing on the dogs found dead in Dowdy Ferry, she received a phone call about a just discovered body. Here’s an excerpt of what she found, in her own words:
A dark tan intact male pit mix lying along the side of the road, its 6-foot heavy metal chain link tether still attached to its collar, trailing out along the dirt and rocks. This dog was covered in mud up to its haunches, indicating it had lived and stood in mud until its death. Both ears were cut off close to the skull leaving a ragged hole for the ear canal. Puncture wounds dotted its back haunches and the back right leg appeared to be broken. The dog’s hip bones protruded and his muscles were underdeveloped.
His final indignity was to be tossed from a vehicle onto the side of a road, exposed to the elements and with no more consideration than a cigarette butt thrown from a moving vehicle. All of these signs point to a life lived on a spectrum between borderline neglect to outright intentional cruelty.
Whether it was neglect or cruelty, “this dog’s owners violated the most basic animal care laws of our city.”
My commentary for the past 18 months has largely focused on the quality of life problems of residents and dogs due to so many loose and stray creatures on the streets of southern Dallas. But as the number of dead dogs in Dowdy Ferry grows — despite a lot of publicity about the outrage — it’s increasingly clear that something untoward is afoot and deserves just as much attention as the loose dog problem.
I grew up in a tiny community out in the country near Waco; my grandparents and other relatives farmed and grazed cattle on acreage even farther from the city limits. Like Timko, who also has country roots in her upbringing, I question the prevailing narrative that a lot of this dumping is simply “what people in the country do.”
No, country people generally have more respect for their animals than this. This seems more in line with what criminals — some kind of bad actors — would do.
Just because the city hasn’t caught any big-time perpetrators or found any solid evidence of serial criminal activity doesn’t prove it’s not out there. Perhaps these dead dogs are the canary in the coal mine for an animal abuse and neglect problem more pervasive than any of us want to believe.
This time there’s something you can do to help: Show up on Dowdy Ferry Road at 9 a.m. Saturday. Be a part of letting the city of Dallas know how vital it is to get an animal crimes unit established with the Dallas Police Department or the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department.
