TEXAS EDITORIAL ROUNDUP
A new law may help, but shelters are overflowing.
A recent social media post told of a cruel scene in the small North Texas town of Valley View: Someone in a truck stopped on the side of a road, forced a dog outside the vehicle and sped off. The pup chased the truck as it accelerated toward the interstate, but the animal soon gave up.
The poster, the sole witness, said she yelled at the dog ditcher to stop but couldn’t get a license plate number. She pleaded for the public’s help, but by the time local property owners got to the scene, the dog was long gone.
Unfortunately, dog dumping is on the rise across Texas as animal shelters operate at or beyond their capacities and pet owners struggle to make ends meet, experts say.
A new state law could help. It prohibits anyone convicted of animal abandonment or another cruelty charge from owning companion animals for five years. The possession ban, which went into effect in September, was authored by Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, and supported by several law enforcement officials who rightly noted the link between animal cruelty and violence against humans.
But much more must be done. Animal abandonment, a Class A misdemeanor, is particularly on the rise along country roads, where there are often few witnesses. “This truly is becoming a crisis of epic proportions as we see our rural counties growing and exploding,” Shelby Bobosky, executive director of the Texas Humane Legislation Network, told us.
Bobosky said her organization has traveled the state educating judges and prosecutors about the new law. She’s also traveled to several rural counties to advise local sheriffs, overwhelmed with dog dumping in their jurisdictions, on ways to help mitigate the problem. Many are posting signs warning of the criminal consequences of animal abandonment. Others are placing hidden wildlife cameras in problem areas, or encouraging property owners to do so, in hopes of catching perpetrators in the act.
Often, however, the only evidence of an abandoned dog is the dog itself, roaming around a pasture or along a road looking for food and water. If lucky enough to be picked up by a good Samaritan, there are scant shelters to take it. And many are already over their limits.
That’s the case everywhere. Dallas Animal Services, for example, this week reported that it was at 139% capacity. And SPCA of Texas facilities are “bursting at the seams with animals, including an influx of puppies and kittens, unlike anything we’ve seen in the past 15 years,” spokeswoman Maura Davies told us in an email.
Bobosky, also an adjunct law professor at Southern Methodist University, said many rural counties don’t have a shelter at all, something she hopes the next Legislature will address. We do, too.
Texans need to know there are consequences to dumping an unwanted dog on the side of the road. But they also need humane alternatives to give up a pet.
