7 APRIL 17-23, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS her and began discussing his intention to trap the cats. “Basically, I told him they’re fixed, they’re cared for, and I left that conversation that day thinking that he wasn’t going to mess with them, he wasn’t going to bother them,” Dennis said. “It was so settled that I didn’t realize what was going on, but [a few months later] my colony started dwindling. And then, one day, I went there, and all the food I had left from the day before was still there. And I was like, ‘My God, what has happened?’” Dennis confronted Spence about the missing cats after finding traps in the neigh- borhood’s vicinity, and “begged” him to tell her where the animals had gone. In a re- cording of a phone call between the two that was shared with the Observer, Dennis asks, “Did you really dump the 14 [cats] in Grand Prairie?” Spence told the Observer he does not recall having the conversation with Den- nis, but acknowledges that the male voice in the recording sounds similar to himself. “Yes,” Spence responds. “They all went to Grand Prairie except for one who was in my car when I went up north, so he went to that park in North Dallas.” Spence directs Dennis to an “undevel- oped parcel” of land near I-30 and MacAr- thur Boulevard, where he’d left the cats captured in Bishop Arts. Dennis said she spent “months” leaving food in the area in hopes of reuniting with her colony, but only one cat was ever found alive. One cat was found dead, and the remaining dozen were never seen again. “I just remember being so devastated,” Dennis said. In the phone call recording, Spence tells Dennis he’d like to “work out a system” to tackle the neighborhood’s cat problem to- gether, but Dennis rebuffs the suggestion as futile, stating that removing cats from Bishop Arts will only make space for other mammals to move in. She said she went to authorities in Dallas and Grand Prairie, where she begged for accountability for her missing cats, but nothing ever happened. She said she posted to the NextDoor app about the situation and was reprimanded for disparaging a man known around the neigh- borhood for being “a philanthropist and such a great guy.” Her frustration had reached a fever pitch when, a few months later, Dennis drove past Spence in Bishop Arts on her way to visit her cat colony. “I just screamed out [my window], ‘Don’t F with cats!’ And I’m not one given to profan- ity, but I did say that,” Dennis said. “I was just so scared he was going to do something that night. So I came back the next day to feed my colony and some man or woman — I don’t know, but it was a human — there was a pile of human excrement by my feeding bowls.” Dennis clarified that she isn’t accusing Spence of the defecation but merely specu- lating about the incident’s suspicious timing. (We asked Spence about this theory, and he started laughing before clarifying he did not, and has not ever, relieved himself in the streets of Bishop Arts.) After that encounter, though, the hostility between Dennis and Spence seemed to cool. As far as she could tell, Bishop Arts’ cat colo- nies had returned to normal, and she didn’t see any traps around for the next few years. Then, last December, rumors began to swirl among the Oak Cliff cat-rescuing community about missing food dishes in Bishop Arts. Dennis immediately knew who to blame. She said it had been nearly three years since she’d last spoken to Spence when, on Dec. 20, 2024, she texted him a warning. “I understand that you are at it again with the cats. I’m sure you never stopped,” she wrote. “FYI, we are aware.” Since that December text message, Den- nis believes around six more Bishop Arts cats have gone missing. Cat advocates have photographed traps left around the neigh- borhood as recently as late March. Meri Dahlke, the owner of Ten Bells Tavern in Bishop Arts and a self-proclaimed “cat influ- encer,” started a petition calling for the end of Spence’s “cruel and harmful behavior” that had garnered over 1,500 signatures at the time of publishing. A dozen reviews accusing Spence of be- ing a cat killer have been left on his busi- ness’s Google page, and an especially embittered coalition of residents have dis- cussed covering his front lawn in used kitty litter — something Dennis says she does not support. One woman who lives in the Bishop Arts neighborhood has taken to jumping the fences of Spence’s properties to steal his traps or free any cat that has been captured — that, Dennis understands. “When it comes to animal rescue, that kind of stuff can’t stop you,” Dennis said. “When it comes to saving an animal’s life there’s not much you won’t do.” Critter Control W hen David Spence called the Ob- server to talk, it was Chapter 7 of Dallas’ City Code that he wanted to discuss — after, that is, he emphatically emphasized that he is not a cat killer. He was fresh off a trip to a remote part of Honduras, and the first thing he did when arriving back stateside was walk through Bishop Arts with the director of Dallas Ani- mal Services. There, he discussed how Chapter 7 fails to consider “modern senti- ment towards cats.” “The code back in the day was designed for mean old people who lived in a trailer and kept their dogs on a short leash or staged dog fights and things like that. The kind of animal cruelty that anyone would understand,” Spence said. “There are a cou- ple of fleeting references in the code to trap- neuter-release programs. But the code does not at all [acknowledge] that TNR cats are not old-school-style feral cats, but they’re also not pets. They’re not owned cats. And so there is this gap in the code with, well, how do you manage that? What are the obli- gations?” In Bishop Arts, where an abundance of apartment complexes make for a transient community, Spence worries that a colony could be registered with the city by a well- intentioned cat lover, only to be abandoned when that person’s lease expires and they decide to move. Or, to consider more morbid implications, what happens to a colony when a caretaker dies? While Dallas’ city code considers how to handle instances of dogs being kept outside in harsh weather, the transport of animals in truck beds and how many animals are al- lowed to reside in a single dwelling unit, stray cats are a gray area. In fact, a city ordi- nance actually states that cats within the TNR program should be excluded from a dwelling unit’s animal headcount, leaving the vagrant kitties largely unregulated. That has opened the door for rescuers like Den- nis, whose cat care is as dedicated as it is vol- unteer-based, to step forward as sponsors for colonies. Dallas Animal Services does have a com- munity cat application online that asks for the contact information of a “colony manager,” as well as details about the colony’s location and size. Dennis said this is the application she filled out, formalizing her Bishop Arts colony. But a spokesperson for Dallas Animal Services told the Observer that the department does not actually have a database keeping track of how many cat colonies are sprinkled across Dallas, or where they are located. DAS is “currently working on” identifying the needs of the com- munity to strengthen the TNR program mov- ing forward. By Spence’s estimation, there are three cat colonies that call Bishop Arts home, each consisting of around 20 cats. When stray cats are taken into DAS for neutering, their right ear is notched to mark them as part of the TNR population. “My guess is that when someone says, ‘I think I want to start a cat colony,’ Bishop Arts is fashionable because you can come feed your cats and then you can get a latte and then you can go to yoga,” Spence said. “And so ironically, under the TNR regime, Bishop Arts has more cats now than it had back in the good old days of just mean, stray, fertile cats.” TNR programs are a relatively modern solution to a timeless stray cat problem. In 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed TNR into law after the programs had spent years operating in a legal gray area. In Texas, ani- mal abandonment is a misdemeanor crime, so House Bill 3660 was passed without op- position to allow animal rescuers like Den- nis to return neutered cats to their home territories without risking prosecution for abandonment. According to Dallas Animal Services, the TNR program is the most effective way to manage stray cat populations because it pre- vents population growth via sterilization and offers an opportunity for feral cats to be vaccinated, tempering the risk of disease. Advocates say that when community cats are removed from a territory, it creates a vac- uum effect, leaving the area unguarded and allowing outside cats that may be pregnant or ill to fill the vacancy. But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department oppose TNR, saying the pro- gram is ineffective in preventing humans from being exposed to diseases and can re- sult in cats being left in harmful or stressful environments. “Neither intentional feeding of free- roaming cats or the sanctioning of managed cat colonies addresses ecological, animal health, or public health concerns,” the Texas Unfair Park from p4 Courtesy Lisa Dennis A cat that Lisa Dennis, founder of Cats in the Cliff group, was able to trap in Grand Prairie to return to Oak Cliff.
