Oak Cliff in Dallas, Texas is inundated with stray dogs. They roam the streets, sometimes in packs of 10 or more. They kill cats, they get hit by cars and they attack joggers.
When my partner Teresa Megahan and I discovered an opportunity to paint a mural and decided that this would be a great way to encourage people to spay and neuter their pets in Oak Cliff.
The mural was immediately approved by the owner of the building as well as the owner of the parking lot on which we would have to stand in order to paint the building.
We had already begun to prepare the wall, filling in large holes in the brick when we received the bad news that one of the owners had changed their minds.
When the internet heard about our issue things went wild and that is how Chris Watts and Todd Fischer from The Petropolitan found out about the project and contacted us about doing the mural on the side of their building.
We also received complaints about the mural at the new location but Chris and Todd didn’t back down. They were even told that there would be protesters during the grand opening but we were fortunate to enjoy the day without protest.
The controversy caused the mural and the problem to receive plenty of attention, people were talking about it and the stray dog problem on television, in the Dallas Morning News and in several other publications which was exactly what I had intended!
The owners of the Petropolitan had fantasized about turning part of their space into an art show so I took the opportunity to create an exhibition for cats as a further way to raise awareness to the issue and hopefully to raise some money for charity.
Unfortunately, the ending of this story isn't exactly happy. We ended up moving away from Oak Cliff not very long after this but before we left Dallas a pack of wild dogs attacked and killed a human being. I'm hoping that by making this post on Bored Panda I can remind you all that it's important to spay and neuter your pets.
If you would like to contact me for any reason please email me at joachimwestfineart@gmail.com Thank you!
More info: Instagram
My original mural proposal
Work in progress at the new location
The community joined in and helped us paint!! Lots of awesome people helped us with this project.
The final result
Getting ready for the opening
Bronze cat tree #1
Bronze cat tree #2
Bronze cat tree #3
Bronze cat tree #4
Bronze cat tree #5
Bronze cat tree #6
Kitty litter zen garden and flowing water-bowl
Flowing water bowl
Kitty litter zen garden
Found object and cat scratching rug hung at cat level
Well, maybe the ending of this story wasn't unhappy for this responsible pet owner
