Latest Dallas Shelter Failures Show Why City Must Keep Close Watch

Outside its shelter walls, Dallas Animal Services' failures were in plain view: Thousands of loose dogs roaming the southern half of the city, creating a safety and quality of life crisis.Now becoming increasingly visible is the shocking lack of controls that existed within the shelter under former manager Jody Jones.A new city audit provides more jaw-dropping examples of the sorry state of affairs that the Boston Consulting Group found within Dallas Animal Services earlier this year. The latest report affirms the need to keep Dallas Police Department leadership in place and raises the very reasonable question of why Jones remains employed at the shelter.Consider these just-revealed compliance problems:-- Record-keeping on drugs, including those used for euthanasia, was all but nonexistent. If drugs went missing, no one would know. Ditto for if they were misused.-- Security apparently wasn't even an afterthought: Among numerous examples, six surveillance cameras weren't working, five were missing and others weren't correctly positioned.-- Only one veterinary inspection of the shelter was conducted in four years -- after the city auditor requested inspection records.  Continue reading...