Animal Control

KEY QUESTION: Do Commissioners Courts have animal control authority?

MAIN REFERENCE POINT: Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 826

TALKING POINTS:

1. Counties and cities are not required to provide animal control services.
2. Counties and cities may adopt the provisions of Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 826 and implement rules or ordinances to prevent stray animals and require rabies vaccination and quarantine.
3. If this chapter is adopted, an animal control authority must be designated. If the county adopts this chapter and the city does not, the county rules should be enforced in the city. If both entities adopt this chapter, the city ordinances supersede the county rules within the city under Section 826.015.
4. Section 826.033 of the Texas Health and Safety Code authorizes Commissioners Courts to adopt an order that unrestrained dogs or cats in the unincorporated area of the county be detained and impounded. “Enforcement will require animal control officers and an appropriate facility,” noted CJCAT Senior General Counsel Jim Allison.
5. The governing body of a municipality and the Commissioners Court of a county may adopt ordinances or rules under Section 826.014 or 826.015 to require that each dog or cat be restrained by its owner; each stray dog or cat be declared a public nuisance; each unrestrained dog or cat be detained or impounded by the local rabies control authority or that officer’s designee; each stray dog or cat be impounded for a period set by ordinance or rule; and a humane disposition be made of each unclaimed stray dog or cat on the expiration of the required impoundment period.
6. A jurisdiction may not be subject to dual restraint ordinances or rules.
7. The enforcing agency may adopt an ordinance setting a fee for the impoundment and board of a dog or cat during the impoundment period. The animal’s owner must pay the fee before the animal may be released.
8. The enforcing agency shall deposit the fees collected in the treasury of the enforcing agency. The fees may be used only to help defray the cost of administering this chapter or the ordinances or rules of the enforcing agency within its jurisdiction.
9. Other statutes provide additional discretionary animal control authority.