City of Houston 2023 Legislative Report

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San Antonio residents hold out hope for dangerous dog laws as legislative session wanes
News 4 San Antonio - May 10, 2023
Tina Paez Oppose HB 4759
April 13, 2023

Public Safety Graphic House Bill 4759 - Dangerous Dogs

BARC is Houston’s Animal Control Agency, and its mission is:

to promote and protect public health and animal care through sheltering, pet placement programs, pet ownership education and animal law enforcement.

It is normal for BARC to receive more than 250 requests for animal control service in a day. Officers often respond to exigent dangers, such as near-fatal maulings, HPD requests for assistance, aggressive animals on school grounds, and individual bite cases. BARC also receives many requests for action related to stray dogs and cats, as well as a surprising number of livestock incidents.

Though BARC serves as animal control, it also is our Adoption and Sheltering Facility for animals. General animal welfare and health are also taken into consideration when responding to animal control service calls.

“Our goal is to provide animal control and care services that minimize fear, pain, stress and suffering to animals in and out of the shelter and we work to ensure safe and healthy human-animal interactions. We work closely with the City of Houston Police Department and Houston Animal Control to respond to animal cruelty and abuse reports, behavioral complaints, dog bite cases and animal/gang related issues.”

House Bill 4759, while the City of Houston supports the updating of the relevant state code dealing with dangerous dogs, the City had concerns with the filed version as it would have harmed the ability of the City of Houston to respond to dangerous dog issues: (1) It creates new presumptions for a dangerous dog and (2) conflicts with the owners rights to appeal a dangerous dog designation.

Dangerous Dog Presumption
The filed version created a presumption that a dog is dangerous if an incident resulted in (1) Serious bodily injury, as defined by Section 822.001, or death of an individual, (2) The transport of an individual to a hospital; (3) The filing of a police report on the incident; or (4) The arrest of the owner.

The creation of the presumption does not allow for interpretation whenever the dog is in fact not responsible for one of these results. For example, someone could call about a dangerous dog because it’s been barking through the fence. Upon arrival the officer may arrest the owner on a completely different charge not related to the dog and the dog would then have to be found as dangerous even if did not do anything wrong. That is just one example of where the filed version of the bill creates confusion.

Conflicts with Owner Rights to Appeal Dangerous Dog Designation
H.B. 4759 as filed removed the existing rights of the owner to appeal a dangerous dog designation as the bill would require animal control agencies to immediately notify law enforcement and a county District Attorney if a dog is determined to be dangerous by the agency. Immediate notification negates the appeals process in Chapter 822, which allows for 15 days for an owner to file an appeal before the dangerous dog determination is final.

Animal enforcement agencies already can, and do, report incidents in which criminal activity is suspected to the appropriate agencies and are required by existing law to keep an updated registry of all dogs declared dangerous in their jurisdiction. This information is available to any prosecutor or law enforcement agency.

The City of Houston testified in the House and subsequently visited with the Author to discuss the possibility of amending the language. The Author agreed with the City’s amendments and removed the presumption language, strengthens the penalty for a dangerous dog offense, and mandates that the animal control agency investigate all incidents.

House Bill 4759 passed but was vetoed by the Governor.