Long after retiring from a career as a mail carrier in Dallas, Tom Roberson still couldn’t shake his doggone problem.
Roberson, 68, and his neighbors say a pack of other neighbors’ dogs often ran amok on their Pleasant Grove street — a problem that some City Council members say is all too prevalent in parts of the city. And Roberson has the scars to prove it.
“This is where I almost sang soprano,” he said, pointing to a pair of jeans that the dogs had torn up along the inseam.
Police and city workers have been called about the dogs in Roberson’s neighborhood several times in the last year, records show. There was little police could do and not much the city would do unless someone wanted to file a formal complaint.
Roberson was reluctant because the dogs belonged to his neighbors, and he didn’t want to cause trouble.
But he unleashed his anger when the dogs of one particular neighbor nearly attacked two small children in his neighborhood. When Roberson heard the children’s mother screaming, he bolted out of his yard and ran to help with a chain. He tried to fight the dogs off, but he couldn’t get them away before suffering a few bites himself.
“I tend to be very lenient,” he said. “But this is not OK. This is going to get a kid killed.”
For too long, he said, it felt like “the only option we have is to start packing or shoot the dogs.”
Officials say they are working to rectify the loose dog problem citywide. Roberson’s council member, Rick Callahan, said education will be key, and that more people need to spay, neuter and restrain their dogs.
“So many people just permit their animals to roam the streets,” Callahan said. “That’s a violation of the law. We’ll continue to work block by block to keep people re-educated about what the rules, what the laws, what the ordinances are.”
City officials say they have boosted the Department of Animal Services staff in the last two years, made efforts to respond to 311 calls about loose animals quicker, microchipped hundreds of animals and used targeted education campaigns.
Council member Dwaine Caraway, who said he has “been raising hell about dogs forever,” complimented the efforts of the city’s code compliance department. But he said there is more work to do.
“Something is going to be done,” Caraway said. “A more aggressive approach will take place, and we will work with council member Callahan, who has been an advocate of trying to get these stray dogs and dogs under control.”
Roberson wasn’t the only person bitten by the dogs. A neighbor had to get stitches after one of the dogs bit him on the finger. The man said he lived in fear of the dogs but didn’t want to complain much either, especially if the owner paid for his medical bills.
But Roberson kept fighting and took his battle to a hearing in the City Hall basement. There, he pleaded his case before a three-member panel of city officials.
The dogs’ owner, Danica White, told the panel that she was overwhelmed by them and didn’t know what she was up against trying to restrain the animals.
“I never knew the dogs could jump a fence,” she said. “This is my first go-round with dogs.”
After deliberation, the panel told White she had two options: turn her dogs over to the city or submit to a long list of restrictions, including fixing her fence, getting liability insurance, putting up a dangerous-dog sign and getting the dogs fixed and microchipped.
She signed them over to be “humanely destroyed” — a half-euphemism for euthanized.
“As much as I want them back, I’m good,” she told the panel as her voice cracked.
After the August hearing, White told a reporter that the decision “is what it is.” In fact, she said, the dogs had bit her, too. But she said she didn’t want to tell that to the panel.
Roberson said the larger problem of uncontrolled dogs on the loose remains, and it’s a problem he said seems prevalent in poorer parts of Dallas. He said it’s time for the city to step up and do more to get the roaming dogs under control, regardless of the cost.
“We talk a whole lot about making Dallas livable and walkable,” he said. “There’s a lot of hot air going around downtown about that, but the bottom line is they don’t spend money unless it’s on something big and shiny.”