Taca, a pretty white pit bull whose scrawny appearance caused a minor stir in the animal rescue world in February, has her girlish figure back.
Her success story shows not only what an active community of animal lovers has developed in Dallas, but also how things are changing in a meaningful way at Dallas Animal Services, the city's shelter.
Taca had recently given birth to a litter of puppies when her photo showed up on Facebook. Concern arose over her protruding rib bones, which made her look gaunt and starving. Animal rescue groups considered intervening, but then Dallas Animal Services intervened.
"We're not just dropping the hammer," says DAS director of operations Catherine McManus. "That doesn't help teach people how to do what is right."
Yes, she looked skinny. Yes, she had whipworms. If it were a different time, she might have been pulled from the home and taken to the shelter, possibly to languish without ever being adopted. Meanwhile, the owner would likely have gone out and gotten another dog, and nothing would have changed.
But Dallas Animal Services' current direction is to work with pet owners, not against them. Cruelty investigator Joshua Ehrenfeld determined that Taca had a caring owner and decided to give him a chance to do the right thing.
"When I got there, I got a good vibe from him that it was more of an education issue," he says. "[Taca] had a nice doghouse in the backyard, and she had food. But she'd had those puppies for way too long, and they were draining her. It was obvious the owner cared about his animals."
The first course of action was to find a home for the puppies. The owner agreed to relinquish them to the SPCA. DAS also helped get her medication for the worms and offered advice on improving her diet. After she gained some weight, she was spayed so that she won't have another litter of puppies.
"A dog can look like it's starving, but Taca had all the food she could eat," he says. "But with the worms and the puppies, no matter what they did, she was always going to look like that. Once we got the puppies away, her condition improved."
They did issue a citation for no registration. But Catherine McManus, DAS director of operations, says that the agency's new model is to be a resource.
"We're not just dropping the hammer," she says. "That doesn't help teach people how to do what is right or preserve that animal bond. The easy thing is to take the animal away. But you're hoping you can prevent them from doing it again."
"The owner of the home as well as the gentleman who owns the dog were both engaged in the dog and interested in doing what was right and concerned about her welfare," she says. "They didn't understand why she wasn't keeping the weight on. But once the puppies and parasites were gone, and she had better nutrition, her condition improved.
"People had a hard time believing it could be something that simple. But even in a week's time, she looked significantly better."
McManus says it's a "paradigm shift" for DAS. "The easier thing would have been to storm in and take his dog and give him some citations," she says. "But what would that have done? We'd rather keep an animal in her home, help her get healthy, and educate a family who can then educate their friends and family.
"It takes more time and resources to do it this way than to take the dog away," McManus says. "But that's the only way we're going to get to the status of a humane community. We want to be here for the animals who need our help, the homeless animals. Not the animals in homes."
Dallas Animal Services worked with Taca's owner to bring her back to health.
