Loss of funding. A deficit in the ability to provide shelter animal surgeries. A full-time veterinarian position that remained unfilled. A short-handed staff accruing overtime from working hard in stressful jobs. About 2,600 animals in foster homes and 600 in the shelter.
All this was discussed in a well-attended public meeting last June in Lakewood with Dallas Animal Services (DAS) answering questions, mainly from those practicing Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Frustrated neighbors talked about being overrun by outdoor cats, trouble accessing TNR resources and feeling like they weren’t being listened to. DAS officials explained they are doing the best they can while managing their resources.
Rock meets hard place.
“I need a place to go,” East Dallas neighbor Jennifer Woulfe said during the meeting. “I love (Texas Coalition for Animal Protection). I do most of my stuff at TCAP, but there have been times that I have to get there at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. I have to wait, and I can’t easily do that. So, for me, I need a place that’s an easier option to go. I’m willing to do it. You have free help right here, free. I’m doing it for free because I know it’s important for the cats. I know it’s important to my community.”
Any animal reproducing quickly and unfettered leads to a bigger population with higher risks for “disease transmission, parasites, sanitation concerns, nuisance behaviors,” says Amanda Earl, DAS assistant director of operations.
“One of the primary benefits of TNR is that participating cats are vaccinated against rabies,” Earl says. “They’ve been sterilized. They’ve at least been looked at by a veterinarian. They have an ear tip so that we can identify those animals. It does help stabilize colony size. It does help reduce nuisance behaviors, but there are only so many resources.”
Almost 8,500 service requests regarding stray cats were placed between August 2023 and September 2025 throughout Dallas but especially in East Dallas, Oak Cliff and southern Dallas, according to a City report.
TCAP doesn’t have an affordable spay and neuter clinic in Dallas. The closest locations for our neighbors are in Garland, Allen or Arlington.
To participate in TCAP’s Feral Fix Program for specifically wild and unsocialized cats, it is recommended to arrive “well before 8 a.m.” to secure one or more of the 12 slots available (limited to four cats per person or organization). If you miss your chance, you have to try again or schedule an appointment and pay $20, according to TCAP’s website. And not all of these clinics perform feral cat surgeries every weekday.
Boulevard, cats are accepted first-come, first-served on open surgery days until capacity is reached (limit two cats per person). This service costs the same as for owned cats, unless a Dallas resident has a service request number, in which case the spay or neuter is free and funded by DAS, according to the clinic’s website. TNRers can get a service request number through 311, but some said at the Lakewood meeting that the process to receive that is inefficient. (Woulfe says TCAP also offers free services for Dallas residents with a service request number.)
And no, the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) of Texas, headquartered in Dallas, is currently not accepting trap, neuter, return surgeries, according to its website. Woulfe says SPCA had a TNR program but stopped after the pandemic.
Some advocates think Dallas Animal Services should actively participate in TNR. The department calls the practice “the only proven, humane method to control outdoor cat populations” on the City’s website but currently isn’t proposing a City-run TNR program.
“We would need the staff support. We would need the funding support. We would need community support. We’d need those partnerships,” Earl says. “We’re constantly leaning on our partners and establishing those partnerships as we can to supplement the resources that we have right now, but the community has to participate.”
Put plainly, the department doesn’t have the medical staff to manage those surgeries, she says. Recruiting veterinarians tends to be a challenge since there are less than 40 American Veterinary Medical Association-accredited colleges in the U.S. On top of that, shelter medicine tends to be a niche study, and filling those roles is difficult. Not every vet can manage 30 or more surgeries in a day. Case in point, Dallas Animal Services has had a full-time veterinarian vacancy since last fall.
“We can’t compete with private enterprise,” Earl says. “We can’t pay off their student tuition costs that they’ve incurred. We can’t offer them the same salaries and benefits as others because we are a municipal organization.”
As of writing this, the department has veterinarians for treatment (one full-time and one temporary part-time), telehealth, and forensics, plus two surgeons, one full-time and one temporary part-time. Compared to the almost 29,000 animals DAS takes in per year, this is a small team, Earl says. They have specialized roles that include providing intake exams, emergency care, illness and injury treatment, surgeries, and medical support for fosters.
Dallas Animal Services also partners with organizations to expand their staff’s bandwidth just to care for shelter animals, but that’s still not enough to do TNR surgeries.
“It’s just not a reality,” Earl says. “It’s not through lack of desire.”
In our neighborhoods, feline concerns are handled by the community engagement team. Among other tasks, these staffers respond to cat-related calls and evaluate situations, point locals toward resources and aim to educate the public. The City used to have a specific program for unowned cats, but that was discontinued because of budget cuts, Earl says.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Community Cat Pilot TNR Program included the so-called Team Tabby, in which 1,451 cats were fixed, preventing thousands of kitten births and newborn intakes, according to a City report.
TNRers interviewed by the Advocate are mostly sympathetic to DAS’s position and would like to see the department get the resources needed.
“Apparently, we need to start attending city council meetings and being a voice for DAS and for these animals because a lot of people aren’t speaking up,” Woulfe says.
Dallas County’s veterinary care accessibility score is 66 out of 100, and, while not the worst, well below that of neighboring counties. DAS is working to help identify where those deserts are and rebuilding infrastructure to better manage animals in the shelter and outside of it, Earl says.
Far Northeast Dallas neighbor Mary German started TNRing on her street before connecting with other neighborhoods, including Oak Cliff, Arlington and Grand Prairie. She manages colonies in Dallas, Garland and Mesquite, feeding the cats even on special occasions and despite challenges brought on by apartment complex rules. She noticed Hispanic communities tended to require the most help.
“There’s a lot of need, not only with the trapping but also getting medical,” German says.
Earl says Dallas leadership has been supportive, but even in a perfect world, she imagines that everyone would step up for DAS, including businesses and neighbors.
“We can’t do it by ourselves,” she says. “We can keep spinning our wheels, we can keep doing sterilizations, we can keep taking the owners’ surrenders, but our most important thing should be to help keep animals in their homes and help provide those resources. But we can’t be the one that’s providing all the resources. We’re not that big. Our community is huge.”
On that point, Earl’s message to those practicing TNR is “keep doing what you do. If we can help, we will.”
