The city of Dallas doesn't have a single agency responsible for investigating crimes against animals so no one is keeping track of the cases.

Of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Dallas is the only one without a unit actively investigating animal cruelty.

Now, after years of pressure from local animal advocates, city leaders plan to turn two existing Dallas police officers into animal cruelty detectives.

Advocates call the city’s proposed fix nothing more than “a Band-Aid.”

"Do you guys know what's going on in South Dallas?” said Amanda Peyton, who described herself to city council members last month as an “incredibly concerned and outraged citizen.”

“Have you heard of what goes on along Dowdy Ferry Road?" she said.

The area has become home to one of the city's largest dumping grounds, not just trash and furniture, dead animals, too.

Animal cruelty experts say many of the animals dumped in southern Dallas county show signs of abuse, but as WFAA reported last year, their cases are rarely investigated and their abusers are rarely prosecuted.

Unlike most major U.S. and Texas cities like New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Dallas doesn't have a dedicated unit actively investigating these kinds of cases.

Instead, the responsibility is spread across four different agencies.

Advocates say that results in confusion, a lack of coordination and missed opportunities to prosecute abusers.

Several of the arrests that Dallas law enforcement have recently made have been in part due to the work of the Dowdy Ferry Animal Commission, a group of advocates who have taken catching animal abusers into their own hands, and in doing so, sparked outrage toward Dallas city leaders with the group’s frequent Facebook posts.

This summer, local advocates formed a coalition called “Just Save the Dog.”

Their goal?

Convince city leaders to allocate an estimated several hundred thousand dollars in next year's budget to fund an animal cruelty unit within the Dallas Police Department.

Members of Just Save the Dog hoped their campaigning would pay off on September 5 when city council votes on next year’s budget.

But funding an animal cruelty unit won’t be up for discussion Wednesday.

Instead, city leaders announced their zero-dollar fix in an August memo saying:

“Dallas Police Department will be selecting two detectives to serve as animal cruelty investigators.”

“It's really just window dressing on the problem,” said Stephanie Timko.

Timko is the leader of the Just Save the Dog group. She applauds the city’s effort to address the problem but says “it’s not even close to enough. We know the problem is big enough to warrant many more officers.”

So how do other cities in Texas deal with similar issues?

The Houston area’s county-wide animal cruelty task force has 12 full time law enforcement officers. Last year, the task force filed 219 animal abuse charges.

“We had fewer last year because of Hurricane Harvey and the re-assignment of several officers during the recovery,” said Jessica Milligan, Harris County Assistant District Attorney and Chief of the Animal Cruelty Section.

Milligan said so far this year, they’ve filed 211 charges and conducted many more investigations.

The Animal Cruelty Investigations Unit of the El Paso Police Department consists of six officers. Since the unit started last November, El Paso has filed more than 14 animal abuse cases.

As for Dallas’ numbers?

We don’t really know. That’s because since the City doesn’t have a single agency responsible for investigating crimes against animals, no one is keeping track.

“So adding two more DPD officers to the mix of the multiple agencies that are working on this problem doesn't resolve anything if no one is actually accountable for performance, if no one is taking the lead to make sure these cases are followed up on and prosecuted,” Timko said.

She and other local advocates have spent more than three years documenting the problem. According to their research, last year Dallas received about 4,000 reports of animal neglect and cruelty. Of those, they say only 50 were investigated.

“If there were any other violent crime category in our city that were being handled that way, that had those kinds of numbers, that would be a national scandal,” said Holly Morgan, a member of Just Save the Dog.

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax, Assistant City Manager Jon Fortune, council member Adam Medrano and DPD Chief Lonzo Anderson all either declined WFAA’s requests for an interview or did not return phone calls and e-mails.

Fortune, however, sent an e-mail statement to WFAA saying "the (two) detectives will receive specialized training and animal cruelty cases will be exclusively assigned to these detectives." He reiterated that "the City is committed to addressing instances where violence has occurred to an animal."

Advocates, though, say they have yet to see any real commitment.