Travis County Commissioners Court

March 15, 2005
Item 4

4. Consider and take appropriate action on proposed regulations of Travis County governing animal control and related matters. Can we just briefly lay out what we think that we have done? And latest draft?
>> good morning Commissioners. I think in the most recent draft in addition to the language, the ordinance language itself, we provided some summary documents that speak to the specific rule changes and so if you like, that's what I will go through with you. Okay? So a summary of -- of the regulations, include the following: a restraint law, which requires dogs to be kept on the owner's property or on a leash under the owner's control or otherwise contained when off the property. The penalty for failure to comply will be a citation and possible impounding of the dog. Another component would be registration. Which would require that dogs and cats be registered annually. The penalty for failure to register would be a citation. And we have heard lots of discussion about the fact that registration helps to ensure that more pets get returned to their owners. Part c of what we are trying to effect is the dangerous dog provision, which includes attacks and/or acts causing reasonable belief or possible attack against people and domestic animals, livestock and fowl. The penalty would be registration as a dangerous dog, which the -- which the fee for that would be about $50. That the dog be kept in a secure enclosure. That the owner carry liability insurance. From $100,000 to $10,000. That there would be a microchip implant that would actually be provided as a part of the program so we would bear the cots of that micro-- the cost of that microchip implant and then other reasonable requirement as necessary and recommended by the animal control authority. On part d would be the rabies portion, which would maintain requirements under state law. E would be the dangerous wild animals. It would implement registration program requiring that any registrant qualify as a wildlife sanctuary as well as meeting all other statutory requirements. Then finally, other parts of the ordinance that we're recommending, adopt other portions of chapters 822 and 826 of the Texas health and safety code relating to animal control. So that is a summary of the current draft version of the ordinance.
>> can we discuss these one at a time and try to figure out where we are. On the -- so last week we did talk about trying to narrow the focus or scope. We talked about concentrating on dogs. But now the current ordinance focuses on animals. Right?
>> uh-huh.
>> it was called to my attention that a -- we had a lemur problem this past weekend under the current ordinance a lemur would be covered, that's a monkey type of animal.
>> I don't believe so, that it would be covered.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> okay. So the current ordinance covers dogs and other animals or just dogs? Not our draft, but without this draft.
>> in our old rule?
>> right.
>> gosh I would have to look at them and see. Huh. I don't know that we have that information here.
>> I don't have a copy of that with me.
>> you're not familiar with a lemur problem this past weekend?
>> the old ordinance does in the restraint section of the law require animals to be restrained versus -- well, it uses the word animals rather than dogs. So there could be an interpretation that that means if you have a ferret that it has to be subjected to this same rules as we are here talking about dogs.
>> our old rules?
>> yes.
>> I don't think we had a --
>> it doesn't have a restraint. But the rules that we do have in there in places refer to animals as opposed to referring specifically to dogs.
>> I’m thinking before and now, in terms of what is the definition of a dangerous wild animal, we are absolutely tracking the very specific named list that the state of Texas has chosen and whether we agree with it or not, that's what the state law says versus specific named wild animals, that's what we have --
>> okay.
>> what the restraint section of the proposed draft is doing is addressing dogs. And the old regulations there are sections of the regulations that refer to animals. And the dangerous animals section it tracked what the state does. So it identifies those species that the state has identified. So this restraint law is stating the way it's drafted now is stating that this law would apply to -- to dogs. Not cats nor any other species of animals in terms of the restraint section.
>> so if our restraint section covers dogs only, can we leave in place parts of the old law that -- that had a broader scope than that?
>> no.
>> or do we appeal that?
>> we are going to repeal the old one, put the new one in place. Taking out the old section, putting this one in instead.
>> now, if we approve this and take that out, do we repeal also the dangerous animals or dangerous wild animals provisions.
>> we have a section in this new one on dangerous wild animals, it is replaced with our section on dangerous wild animals as they are defined by the statute.
>> now, are we changing the --
>> we added -- we reworded it to where it was not a prohibition. It was a regulation of dangerous wild animals, which added the requirement that they also be a wildlife sanctuary. The old wording came at it more as a pro hicks with an exception -- prohibition with an exception for wildlife sanctuary. The impact should be the same.
>> I thought our focus -- I thought last time it was to try to focus on wild animals later.
>> we did.
>> the dangerous wild animals we have to add by law we have to have something in place for that back as of December '02 I think. We have to address that.
>> that's why I was asking whether we had left in place whatever we had --
>> any other animals, though, we are not addressing in this. It's just dogs.
>> whatever we put in place in '02 we are changing that here.
>> yes.
>> do we have to?
>> no.
>> only in the accepts that, judge, before -- in the sense that judge, before, we had issues being raised whether we were allowed to do a prohibition with an exception. We have flipped that to say we have a registration that is very narrow to bring in the definition of a wildlife sanctuary. The effect is exactly the same. Not changing the status quo in terms of the wildlife sanctuaries that we have got here in town that are doing an excellent, excellent job. But we are doing exactly what you said next week. We are not overreaching beyond where we are. We are focusing on the dangerous dog piece and the dangerous animal piece is exactly what the state of Texas has declared or the dangerous wild animals and not going beyond that list. It's possible -- what is that name lemur.
>> I’m sure Commissioner limmer is thrilled to hear that.
>> a lemur is not listed, 52.09.
>> we have not gone I don't hat.
>> a lemur would not be covered under Travis County's old ordinance? I keep saying old, but it's really in place right now because we haven't changed it. Under our current ordinance a lemur would not be covered as an animal?
>> ist existence, exist in this the community would not be prohibited because it not on the state list, which is what the existing regulations would be regulating.
>> all right.
>> so they would not be impacted.
>> so the rabies provisions currently cover what animals?
>> well, the -- the rabies provisions are going to -- going to implement the requirements of the state law for rabies, which would be --
>> dogs and cats have to be vaccinated.
>> the rabies provision in the current law. Current law I would mean what's in place right now, I’m going to refer to our proposal as the draft order, the draft ordinance.
>> I believe our other rules cover dogs and cats for rabies, also.
>> right.
>> would they cover like a lemur or any other animals that may have rabies?
>> well, they wouldn't cover them unless there's a requirement like if there was a requirement under state law that those animals be vaccinated then yes that would be covered. But if there's not then they would not be covered. Existing regulations, this is a generalization, they do deal with the dangerous wild animals, that we adopted a couple of years ago, in accordance with what the state set out, they deal with the requirements for rabies control, they do not have an existing restraint component to them. And they don't have an existing pet registration component to them. So the things that we are talking about implementing now aren't addressed in the -- in the existing regulations.
>> okay.
>> so you really can't compare what we are doing now to what -- to old in terms of dogs or other animals because the things, the restraint law and the registration law didn't exist in the old regulations. So you really can't compare dogs to other animals.
>> if the Commissioners court wants to further study other animals, that the court I believe would have to declare dangerous animals as opposed to dangerous wild animal, which is listed under that section in the statute, certainly they can look at that, they can make decisions if they want to adopt additional provisions covering those animals, the court can do that.
>> okay.
>> but we didn't do it today.
>> that's not what's in this.
>> on the restraint of dogs, can we just indicate on the record specifically what the requirements are?
>> the requirements are that the dog be restrained on their own property on a leash, when they are off their property not otherwise contained. An example would be in your car, in a crate, someone else's private property and agility field, something like that. If there's a violation of that, we -- we could issue a citation or impound the dog depending on what's appropriate for that situation. The other provision that is in here is that if the dog is off of its property, but returns to its property before we get there to deal with the situation, so the dog is in your yard, not letting you go to your mailbox, whatever, it runs back to its yard, if you will file a sworn statement we can issue a citation, even though the dog has returned to its property. If that happens three times, we can then impound the dog even if it has returned to its property. That will allow us to take care of nuisance situations where animals are repetitivly leaving their property, going off and pestering somebody else but then returning to their property we will be able to deal with those situations.
>> okay. So in terms of restraint of dogs, do you think we responded to the comments that we got?
>> yes. I believe we did. Anything else on restraint of dogs? The other real big issue I guess was basically the dangerous dogs definition. I guess we probably got more comment on that than anything else. So where did we land on that? The dangerous dog definition in the draft that's before you today, defines a dangerous dog as any dog that is intact or causes a reasonable belief of the attack against [indiscernible] domestic animals, livestock and fowl. That's where the big discussion was should we just be addressing people or should we be addressing other animals as well. And the subcommittee had a lot of discussion about that issue. We do get a lot of complaints about attacks on other animals. And attacks on other animals frequently lead to bias or tax on people because people -- leads to bites or attacks on people, because people try to protect their animals, so that leads to dangerous situations for people as well. So we left that in there addressing people or animals. The penalties are what tough do to resolve the dangerous dog, we did reduce the amount of liability insurance required if the dog was declared dangerous because of an attack on a person. It would require $100,000 in liability. If the dog was declared dangerous because of an attack on an animal, it would only require $10,000 and liability insurance. Other than that difference, the requirements for secure enclosure, registration of the dog, microchip implant and then any other reasonable requirement that's we thought were necessary for public safety would be the same whether the attack was on -- was on a person or another animal.
>> so as we keep bringing up the summer situation, which seems to be our poster child for bad behavior, summer's situation is covered here because that was a domestic animal, also an attack against a person. But we also heard a lot of comments coming from around the rural areas that the problem related to livestock and fowl is still just as serious an issue, we've got a dog that ventures off and starts killing somebody's chickens or their livelihood, so we have all of those cases covered. But we did recognize in terms of the liability insurance that an attack against a person is a higher value than an attack against an animal. But an attack against an animal still meant something because it could be -- it's a valued pet, but it also is something that could be impacting somebody's livelihood in terms of their business in terms of livestock and other kinds of fowl.
>> so did we say what kind of animal has to be attacked?
>> the way it's drafted now it domestic animal, livestock or fowl. We think that's a good definition.
>> yes, sir.
>> did we pull that from another ordinance?
>> I believe there's language like this in the state law.
>> state.
>> I don't know -- I don't know whether I have seen other county ordinances or not specifically worded that way.
>> is it in the city of Austin ordinance?
>> the city of Austin ordinance doesn't address attacks on other animals, but it doesn't specify these three categories of animals. So it doesn't define domestic animal, livestock or powell, just addresses attacks on other animals.
>> do we think other animals in the city ordinance would cover these three for all categories.
>> yes.
>> the -- you know where the commission seemed to be headed on definition of dangerous dogs? Animal health commission?
>> the animal advisory commission?
>> advisory commission, yeah.
>> I believe that their recommendation was to not include the animal piece and the people piece together. That they felt that they needed to be dealt with separate. I think their recommendation was to set aside the -- the dangerous dog component and do more thorough review on that was their recommendation.
>> okay. But we do try to differentiate in the insurance requirement.
>> yes.
>> yes, sir.
>> we have also separated out some of the other provisions to make it a little more clear.
>> okay. Do we think these provisions, though, are -- are precise enough to be enforceable?
>> I think they are. We are also going to have a degree of reasonableness that we have to expect from our enforcement personnel, a degree of reasonableness that we have to expect in dealing with the citizens who get too into these conflicts. But I don't see any glaring problems for us in terms of our ability to -- to work through the situations that we will encounter and come to reasonable conclusions.
>> I think there was a general sense of -- that we wanted to legislate the general and deal with the exceptions as opposed to legislaturing the exceptions and everybody else has to come under that. You will not find a subsection here that specifically addresses what if [indiscernible] comes to your property, they knock on your door, nobody comes, they leave it ajar, somebody steps in, we didn't go to that extent. Somebody -- some of it will have to work our way through it in terms that would be an exception. In terms of how you handle that particular thing. What we ought to do is we have tried to deal with everybody's suggestions as best we could, it's time to move on, we ought to see how it goes. If there are any unintended consequences or blurriness where there was clarity, clarity where there's no blurriness, we ought to deal with those after we have this in effect 90, 21, one year. This ought to be a living document. We move forward. But I think that we have dealt with the summer situation for sure, specific problems of what's going on out in the more rural areas related to livestock and foul and tried to balance as best we could, but at some point I think that we have folks that wanted to go down a particular road, I respect that. And this is going down another road and I think we get to the same place. I think we do better on behalf of everybody that's out there related to responsible pet ownership. That's what it really all boils down to.
>> we talked a lot about provocation previously. And our definition is 52.003. We used the language without provocation in the dangerous dog definition. Which means that -- that -- right? If a dangerous dog commitments these acts with provocation, then the act is excused, basically.
>> yes, sir. Does that change the current ordinance or is that pretty much status quo.
>> that's status quo. In there is provocation, then the -- the act is forgiven.
>> if you come home, a dog is in your yard, you try to shoo the dog out of your yard but back home and the dog reacts by biting, provocation or no?
>> well, I think we have to look at that situation.
>> that's how we got, though. That was complained -- the common complaint was dogs are out running around, and that would be a violation of the restraint provision. But the question is this dog bites as a result of being shooed, my example was it was not a real situation for me by the way, but I thought it was a good example. I come home from a hard day's work at the county, pull up in my driveway, l.o. And behold my neighbor's dog is in my yard. I try to shoo the dog out, the to go doesn't like that, the reaction is running at me and maybe even biting me. So in terms of provocation, provocation or no? I think the answer to that ought to be no provocation, this dog ain't at home.
>> the dog is already in violation of the restraint law. If you look at what we are trying to do, the most important part is to prevent the -- us ever having to invoke the dangerous dog exceptions of the law. By getting people to behave more responsibly, keep their animals at home so we don't get to the situation where you have them in your yard, you are trying to get them out of your yard. When I say we have to take a look at that, I do want the -- related to the dangerous dog section of the law, we intend to have thorough investigations, we intend to have a thorough hearing process. We are developing a set of standards based on risk factors. So that we will be consistent and thorough in our declaration of a dog as dangerous. So -- so that's what -- I’m reluctant to respond to scenarios, I would not want to give a message that we wouldn't consider the entire scenario. The restraint section, that doition already on the law, should not be on your property, we can respond to that immediately and hopefully get that situation taken care of before the dog has reason to bite you or attack you. When you get to proch ation, if you are shooing the dog in a benign way, we did our investigation. It was not provocation. If you are hitting the dog with a two-by-four, that form of trying to get it to leave your property and it turned around and bit you after you hit it over your head we might say that was provocation. Those situations and the dangerous dog, the reason that we have a hearing for them is to be thorough, conduct a thorough investigation and make sure that we are resolving the conflict for a person who is being threatened or has been bitten or attacked, but also to make sure that we are being fair in our review of what really happened so that we are not thrairg a dog dangerous without having been through a very thorough process to make sure we get to the facts.
>> one of the seniors in my neighborhood is walking her dog on a public county road. And -- one of the dogs in the neighborhood sees a little dog being walked.
>> on leash or off leash.
>> on leash.
>> okay.
>> big dog runs out, basically tries to bite little dog. Neighbor tries to protect a little dog so sort of it's in the middle. We heard four or five examples like this that were supposed to be realized. And big dog bites hand of neighbor. Is that provocation or not?
>> under the definition that we have here, if the person is intervening to protect their animal that would not be considered provocation.
>> under the old law that was considered provocation. That was -- that was summer all over it. Not only was the dog not required to be on the property, but, you know, intervening when a dog is feasting on your pet was considered prov joking the dog -- provoking the dog and it didn't count it was against an animal in terms of those injuries. We have changed things substantially. That example that you just gave there, the dog didn't stay on its property. That's not -- that's a change. The dog is not allowed to feast on other dogs. That is a change. It counts. And you in protecting your animal also does not count as provocation. So there are three major changes from --
>> where is the intervening language? Has subsection is that in?
>> the definition.
>> we address provocation.
>> where is it? Where is the answer that you just gave me.
>> at the end of the dangerous dog definition.
>> should be the top of page 3 if yours printed the way mine did.
>> all right. Still under definition 52 point 003.
>> right before g. Start with the [indiscernible] rules, provocation should be -- for the purposes of these rules, provocation shall mean overacts by a person which would reasonably be expected to irritate, harass or aggravate a dog such as teasing, taunting, et cetera, but does not include any act by a person reasonably seen by that person as necessary to intervene to protect another person or livestock, domestic animal or fowl.
>> okay. The e-mails we got about dangerous dog pointed out other animals and what else can you recall?
>> the big issue that I recall being a concern in the dangerous dog language was including the attacks on people and attacks on animals as one component in there. There was a sense it wasn't as an egregious of an act to have an animal attack another animal and therefore to be considered at that same level.
>> okay. I think the other things that we had, people on both sides of the issue concerned whatever we were doing is breed specific which clearly this is not. Others that were saying you ought to make it breed specific, which it is not. I’m trying to recall the other e-mail what's we got. We got a lot of folks about specific breeds, breed mixes, et cetera.
>> anything else on dangerous dog? Registration is my last issue. Specifically, we are requiring -- what animals be registered?
>> [indiscernible] required to be registered annual, basically the requirements.
>> that costs us how much?
>> the -- the registration fee for the citizen would -- what I would suggest is to do the same thing the city is doing so that we would have consistency for the vets which would be $5 annually for a sterilized pet and $15 annually for an intact pet.
>> is that the city's requirement now?
>> yes, sir.
>> I did remember an e-mail that said basically the writer thought we would be shifting to poor people an additional maybe up necessary cost. Annual registration. It will be creating a cost, very small cost, it will be creating a cost for pet owners. The reasons that I suggest a pet registration program are two. One to attempt to identify more animals so that when animals are in violation we have some chance of being able to locate where they g, who the owners are. Second if we are going to be impounding animals, animals that do ends up being in the shelter are significantly more likely to go back home if they are registered and that's above id tags or other types of registration. They are more likely to have a positive outcome in the shelter to can go going back home. If we are going to implement laws where we are going to be I am pounding more animals, I think it's fair and supportive of the animals to have a registration program so we could try to get more of those animals back home. So those are the two reasons to consider having a pet registration program.
>> is that the city's requirement now.
>> the city does have a pet registration program that requires annual registration of dogs and cats.
>> and the county requirement? On the current ordinance.
>> there is no requirement in the current ordinance. Under the -- if we adopt this, then unregistered animals who are off their property were being impounded.
>> they would be -- being off their property, they would be impounded anyway. The lack of the registration would be an addition violation, so, for example, if we were to identify the owner, the owner came running up, said it's my dog, I will take it, we were able to put it back into the custody of the owner, the violations at that time would be not restrained and not registered, both of which could be citations. We could issue two citations in that circumstance rather than just the one being offered for the property.
>> if the owner didn't run up, would you just impound the dog.
>> we would.
>> register the dog, give them a tag, find out the owner, take the dog home.
>> we would take the dog home, if there's somebody there to take custody of the animal and assure us they can keep it from being back off of its property. We would attempt to get it back home in the field rather than taking it to the shelter.
>> judge, that was one of our concern that's we brought up in the subcommittee, this is something new that's not in the notes is related to, you know, it would be $15 a year for -- for what are we calling it? Intact animal. And in terms of whether that would -- because there are people that for whatever reasons, they are breeding them or whatever, they want to have intact animals, would that stand in the way of people trying to get their dogs properly and cats spayed and neutered. We asked sherri flemming to see if we could find some funds internally in health and human services, reasonable fund of $10,000, that dorinda could then match as she's doing at the city of Austin with the $10,000 from her donation fund and to be able to have a pot of money equivalent to what's happening at the city that dorinda can get the van to go out into our low income and poor neighborhoods outside the city of Austin, city limits, to get spaying and neutering done so that they would then qualify for the $5 in terms of the cheaper way. We wanted to have not simply a piece of paper that would bring forward saying this is all about responsive pet ownership, we wanted to provide some dollars as well to say that the county will assist in low income neighborhoods in terms of responsible pet ownership if somebody is desirerous of not intact animals and qualifying for the lower registration.
>> the other thing is the review of the veterinary services being provided in the county, their 21 -- there are 21 virginia ians in Travis County, 13 of them already selling the city of Austin pet registration tag. Which would be indicative you have some number of citizens in the county choosing to purchase that registration as a way to safeguard their pets should they end up in the shelter. So the survey of the 8 veterinarians who are not selling them four said they would, two or three are maybes, one we didn't get a response from.
>> has Austin's requirement that cats be registered also proven to be effective? Because we adopt have a -- we don't have a cat control program, we don't try to get them -- go out and get them and try to bring them back to their owners. People bring in cats. It's probably not as effective in terms of being able to identify animals and get them back to their owners, because the cats have to get lucky to get back to their owners. We do have citizens who bring cats into the shelters that they pick up or find as strays and a few of those will have collars and identification, but some do, very few, though. The component on cat registration is really more being supportive of the rabies protocols and saying that you should get your another way to remind people to get their rabies vaccinations is really the driving factor for cats.
>> if stray cats are in the neighborhood and the control officer is called, they meaning unregistered, when the patrol officer calls, if there's not an owner, nearby like in the situation with the dog, the cats will be impounded.
>> we would not impound cats. We would write a citation for the -- for not being registered. The restraint component only deals with dogs. So there's not a restraint component for cats. Therefore we wouldn't impound them.
>> I understand. Who would we give the citation to.
>> if we could identify an owner we would write a citation.
>> if we cannot identify an owner, what do we do.
>> if we can't identify an owner, there's not a restraint law for cats, then there's really not any other programs in place to deal with cats that are roam in this the neighborhoods.
>> if there's a requirement that cats be registered, what's the penalty for violation.
>> a citation if we identify an owner.
>> we will use that sometimes as a way, if someone is not being cooperative about getting the cats rabies vaccinations, then we will issue citations for both the rabies violation and pet registration violation as a way to encourage them that they need to be cooperative about getting the cats vaccinated. We do issue citations for unregistered cats. Not nearly as many as we do for dogs because of the restraint situation for dogs lead us to encounter those animals. Because there's not a restraint law for cats and there's not a reason that we are going out and interacting with cats and determining their status.
>> as a reminder, the only way that we can capture the registration of dogs is to also require the registration of cats. I agree with you, judge, what's the point here other than if fluffy --
>> I’m having a hard time understanding if there are two or three bad cats in my neighborhood and I call and complain, I know they are not registered but they have owners, I complain to the owner [indiscernible], so no owner, you can't issue a citation.
>> that's right.
>> why wouldn't -- at what point do we impound the cats? At what point do the cats become a public nuisance notwithstanding the lack of a restraint provision that covers them.
>> typically, we will deal with them becoming a public nuisance when there's a concern about a health problem. If you have a number of cats and you believe they are causing an unsanitary or health, you know, public health situation, when we would typically intervene. We set some direction with the ordinance to be focused on dogs. The cat situation in our community, meaning both Travis County and the city of Austin is not a good situation. There are large numbers of marginally owned and unowned cats everywhere out there in the community, lots and lot of them are breeding. And they are -- there has not been a commitment made to resources for feral cat management programs or other interventions related to the cats. Just this year I have been working more with some feral cat groups and non-profits that are coming up in the community and really doing some good work to help us. So this year I have been able to refer citizens with problems to some of these non-profit groups and they are able to go out and help with some trapping programs that kind of thing. But it is a big unmet need in the animal welfare world in a we are really not addressing adequately. At the outset of these regulations, I think that we would have to find, give the court the direction to stay focused on dogs so we didn't get into some [indiscernible] related to cats. It's certainly something that we need to come back and add at some point because the populations of unowned or marginally owned cats are growing.
>> it might be something we have to ask to additional legislation.
>> we don't have the authority to impound stray cats now?
>> not under this -- impose the restraint law.
>> I haven't seen a cat on a leash yet. [laughter]
>> again, we might have to get legislation that would give some authority short of a leash law to control cats. We don't have the authority to impound unregistered, unowned stray cats today. Not that I know of. But I haven't done extensive research on that. I have just looked at what we are looking at. But I certainly can put that on the list.
>> can we look at the permanent registration one time that promotes sterilization?
>> the subcommittee discussed it. I think the direction of the subcommittee was to go with something straightforward to get it implemented and then look at alternatives that might be desirable once the law was implemented.
>> also if the city of Austin wanted to have as much consistency as possible with the city of Austin in terms of the rules and regulations and fees, and at this point the city has not made a decision on that, but certainly if they decide to go with lifetime pet registration, we want to be right there behind them in terms of consistency. One of the very interesting, if you can walk through this in terms of costs related to sterilizing your pet versus how much you might actually save on your license, it's not really something that is going to put you over the top of -- of wanting to get that sterilization, sterilization is going to occur because it's the proper and right and responsible thing to do but getting a break on the fee, just looking at the cost benefits of it, it's not there. It's just flat out isn't there. In terms of the lifetime registration, walk through those numbers like you did in terms of a pet --
>> first of all, it is important for the veterinarians to be cooperative that we have a consistent pet registration program in the city and county. Because their clients are living wherever they are living and we want it to be simple for the veterinarians to sort it out and the veterinarians sell most of the tags for us. The animal advisory commission is accepting registrations regarding lifetime pet registration, that will at some pointing forward for the city council to consider. At that time I would recommend to the Commissioners court that you try to stay in sync with the city and county so that the veterinarians are happy with that and we don't make them crazy. I think considering a lifetime pet registration program is a good thing to do. I’m supportive of the lifetime pet registration component. However, I think that we need to look at what are we trying -- look thoroughly at what are we trying to achieve with that. And build the lifetime pet registration component to achieve whatever objectives we set out. One of the objectives that I think we should consider with the lifetime pet registration component is a microchip. Because you get the permanent implant in the animal, that is a big advantage to an animal that may lose their tags and collars, they have this backup plan with the microchip. I think that's an important component to consider. I believe if we can do things to motivate additional material -- sterilizations that's another important component to consider. If you look at the lifetime pet registration, you have to look at the level of the fees if you are going to promote additional sterilizations through offsetting costs. Right now for a $5 fee, if your dog is going to live 12 years, you would save $55 by paying a one-time registration, getting your dog sterilized, you would save $55. The cost of the sterilization at most veterinarian clinics is going to be substantially more than that. 95 to 125 even as high as 250. So I’m not sure that individual people will be motivated to get a sterilization done at that level of cost savings. They might. But I think those are the kind of things that we really need to get some good data on and make sure that we are setting the fee at a level and putting all of the components of the program together that will actually make [indiscernible] on what we want to get done. The objectives are to get more permanent identification and get more sterilizations done, we need to look at the components of the program, including the fee structure, to make sure that we are actually going to get that to happen. Because you will be with the lifetime pet registration, you will be giving up some aspect of the program. You will be giving up the annual updates and those kind of things, we want to make sure that we have a balanced program. I think that we will have something relatively soon to take forward. For consideration. For a lifetime pet registration program. I think the animal advisory commission is continuing their deliberations and will be coming to some conclusions that we can then move forward with the city council and take a look at that and hopefully we will have a program that's going to work for us.
>> anything else from the court on the draft ordinance?
>> I just had one question.
>> when you deploy your mobile units in the community, how is that advertised, especially in the rural area, not in the city of Austin for example, not in the rural community -- but in the rural community where we have heard concerns, how do you deploy the mobile units for the shots and things like that, how is that done currently? You mean like vacation nations.
>> right. All of those things.
>> our current programs have been focused on city of Austin neighborhoods. With the passage of these laws, we will begin to do some of those efforts in Travis County districts or precincts. For example, we do free rabies vaccination clinics and free pet renl straiks with that in the low income neighborhoods in the city of Austin. I would like to go out into the county to do some of that to get some of those pets registered, bring them into the system, get their vaccinations done and help some of our low income citizens. That's also an outreach or education opportunity for us to talk to people about what the new laws are, what the requirements are for responsible pet ownership. Also gives us an opportunity did because they are getting a free vation nation, they will usually listen to us, gives us an opportunity to talk to them about sterilization options, how to get the animals fixed at low or no cost if we can provide free services. Along with implementing these laws, we need to mobilize those kinds of education and outreach efforts into the Travis County neighborhoods, including the rural areas. So that we can do as much as we can to bring positive influences around voluntary compliance with more responsible behavior instead of just relying on the citations and the enforcement side.
>> the reason I posed that question, of course you have heard some of the concerns of some of the requirements that we are looking forward governing animals throughout the county, including the rural area. Of course I wanted to make sure that the persons out there who is listening to this will have an opportunity to actually get those type of services if and when they are located out in the rural. I especially want to figure out how you are going to coordinate that or how do you prioritize your locations and the when of those particular dates and things of that nature. That will be done, I guess, through education process. Because I want to make sure that those folks that have echoed their concerns from the rural community have a chance to participate in this program just as the residents of the city of Austin.
>> yes, sir. The -- our process for prioritizing will look at first of all, areas where we have problems, what are our high areas of bites, roaming dogs, those issues because we want to try to go first into areas that are having the biggest issues. Then looking for areas where -- that are economically depressed. If we are going to go in and provide free services, we want to make sewer that we are targeting those -- sure that we are targeting those services to people that couldn't afford them. Those are our priorities, to take care of the hot areas, areas where we have individual who are not going to be able to afford to take care of those services for themselves so we can help them out with some of that.
>> thank you.
>> any idea of what percentage of dogs and -- in the city of Austin are registered annually today?
>> i've had estimates done by consultants who worked in the pet registration field that say that we are probably at about 12% of the pet population in Austin. But we have not had an animal census done in Austin, so these companies do them from where they do have animal censuses and do population comparisons. There's certainly a lot of improvement for pet registration raising the number of pet registrations, that's something that as we see options for more funding or options for additional resources that we certainly need to take a look at.
>> Austin has had the annual registration requirement how long?
>> the annual registration requirement has been in place for -- for as long as those regulations have existed. Easily. I don't know. 30 or 50 years. We did clarify when the -- when the rabies, state rabies law has recently changed to allow for a three-year rabies vaccine. So we did clarify just recently when that law changed that we wanted to continue the annual registration requirement so that we could continue to get updated information on our repeat registrations. That is impacting the number of registrations because registrations typically get done at the same time as you get your annual rabies vaccination. Since the rabies vacation nations were no -- vaccinations were no longer annual, that is having an impact on repeat registrations because people aren't having to go in to get their vaccinations annually. That's one of the reasons we want to continue an annual registration program is people move around, their rabies vaccine is a year or two or three years old, we want to try to keep current identification on the animals as much as possible so we want to continue to ask for that annual registration.
>> okay. I guess the problem I’m having if the city's requirement has been in place two decades, and the compliance rate is like 10 or 12%, and we have not had a registration requirement in the county, all of a sudden we go to annual -- an annual requirement, I don't know what -- why we would expect to -- the compliance rate to be any better. You have -- seems to me to make it easier if we -- if we provide like a lifetime, if you have sterilization, at least you have that choice. $5 may not mean much to a resident, but going back annually might. See what I’m saying?
>> uh-huh.
>> historically, there has not been a requirement to register. All of a sudden you have got to register dogs and cats. And maybe we are setting ourselves up for registration failure.
>> well, you are going to get some number of pets registered. Whatever you do get registered those are going to be additional dogs where we have identified who they are, where the owners are. It's going to be animals who have that chance, a better chance of getting back home because we can identify where they belong and get them matched up with their owner. It's not perfect, it's not ideal. Compliance isn't what we would like to have. But I think that it's a program worth doing because I see the difference that it makes, primarily because I see the difference it makes for animals that do go home. Animals that are --
>> some animals in rural areas are registered now.
>> over half of the vets are already selling pet registration tags to Travis County residents. So I don't think when you implement this law, that your -- that for a lot of people they are not going to see any change because they are already doing it at those vets that are selling them.
>> most responsible people are going to register their pets in fear of something happening to their pets or losing their pets, I would think. But, I mean, the overwhelming majority of people in this county and in this country are probably not going to register their pets, I mean, it's like paying taxes. Let's ask everybody pay taxes if you wanted to. Okay. Well I mean you have, you know, three percent of the people that do it, I mean, the same thing will happen with the animal thing, I mean, responsible people that want to make sure that their pets are taken care of and in the event that they are lost or whatever, that is the reason. But we are -- I mean the registration thing, we are not going to -- to have a gestapo go out and start going door to door to register pets. So, I mean, I think that we ought to encourage it as much as we can. I mean, it will be along with education factor in this community about how you get the word to the county, how you get the word especially given that we are probably going to I hope vote on this today -- and move down the road. I mean, but registration is something that i, you know, again it's one of those things that when we first started this thing that was not the intent, I mean, I think that we a ought to put out the word register your pet, we want you to register your pets, I mean, we think you ought to register your pets so that we can help you in the event that something takes place and you lose your animal. There is an underlying reason why we would like to have them registered because if there is something that happens to another animal and your animal is part of it, we would like to be able to make sure that we have got -- that we know where to go to say your dog attacked your neighbor's dog. It killed your neighbor's dog. I mean that's, you know, I wish that we could get everybody to register them but i'm, you know, I certainly am not thinking that that is going something that we are going to be overeffective at doing. Especially given that we don't have the process nor do we have the manpower to do this. So --
>> certainly the pet registration is an optional component of this. It's something that I recommend --
>> when is it effective?
>> I would assume that it would take effect whatever date you choose to make this law effective.
>> is there a recommendation from the subcommittee? Or the committee?
>> I don't think we ever talked about it on registration, but certainly there ought to be a grace period in terms of it ought to go into effect immediately and you give people 790 days, 120 -- 90 days, 120 days to come into compliance on this. Again we already have some people who live out in the county that are already there.
>> you could give it six years, the first time that somebody had the September counter they would go I didn't know about it. You would go well do you live on jupiter or where? How do you not know about this? I mean I’m fine with having three months, having something reasonable, having six months to say, you know, after six months if your animal has an encounter we are going to say, you know, you have another infraction. Your animal is not registered. We voted on this March the 15th, 2005, that's when it was put in. We have got it in law and I’m happy with six months, judge.
>> the other thing for us to keep in mind with the implementation phase of this is that we have included in thely a waiver of the citation, where we don't file the citation is how we achieve that. For first-time offenders. So for the first-time person who doesn't know there's a pet registration law or a restraint law they can take our responsible pet owners class to learn what the laws are, as well as stuff about animal welfare, anti-cruelty, that kind of information, appropriate tethering, human tethering, take that class and make that citation not be filed for the first time. We sell pet registration tags in the field so if you have got your money handy, your pet is not registered, dog is not registered, we are talking to you about it, you can buy your tag right then. We will be working with people to issue warning citations initially when these new laws go into place because we do want to give people an opportunity to come in to voluntary compliance. That's what we are aiming at is more responsible behaviors. We are not aiming at more enforcement necessarily. We wanting more voluntary compliance so these things are stopped proactively. But I think that we have a good package of options for people to take advantage of for the newness of this. With our responsible pet owner's class, with warning citations, I think that we've had option that's we can work with people on until they have adjusted to the new requirements.
>> okay.
>> basically what it does, it gives us another tool to use. And again maybe somebody who wouldn't ordinarily register, say you are going to pay this citation, get your dog registered, they will opt for the registration. It's another tool that we have to use for animal control. Not that it will be 100% effective. No. But it does -- just like the restraint law. Not every dog will be on a leash, but we have a tool to use when there's a problem and a dog is not on a leash. We do have now more tools available. To help.
>> you may need four of those chairs. If you would like to give comments on this item today, please come forward.
>> judge, I want to make sure before we get started here, two of the things that you asked the subcommittee to look at and we have provided backup to the court is that you asked us to come up with some education strategies related to these new regulations and dorinda has done that related to the implementation and ongoing in terms of recommendations and in terms of enforcement strategies you also have a backup page that has during the implementation and long-term strategies. So I just wanted to make sure those two pieces were also addressed.
>> also if the court decides to vote today, dorinda e-mailed me the impound fees which I believe the draft has blanks there. Before we vote I would like for her to read those current fees into the record so that those would be a part of the final rules if those are adopted today.
>> which match the city of Austin.
>> yes, match the city of Austin.
>> you keep the log of enforcement activities?
>> yes, sir.
>> if we wanted to know three months after adoption of an ordinance what the enforcement activities have been, you would be able to provide that information within a few days?
>> yes, sir. What -- I’m anticipating that you will want to know during the course of the implementation is the number of activities or calls that citizens are concerned about, the response times, the -- the enforcement activities, whether those were citations, warnings, attendance at the responsible pet owner class, number of impound and then with the number of impound of animals I can give you statistics on the results of those impound, how many of those animals were reclaimed, how many were placed, through replacement programs, how many were euthanized. Sass what my plan is -- that's what my plan is to provide you. But any other statistics that you want we have a pretty robust data base. I’m sure that I will be able to provide that.
>> I think we would also want at that point if there's a specific part of the new rules that is causing a problem, then a report back on that that if there's something that seems to be unclear or -- keeps coming up over and over and over. Not a one-time thing. But repeatedly is causing issues out in the field, causing issues with citizens, then we would want to hear back on that too.
>> certainly. We will have the officers identifying any enforcement problems that we run into, if they have confusion, arguments, difficulties in the field, I can certainly report back to you on what those issues are and what kind of problems that we are having.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...it's a type of monkey, this last weekend. We understand and we got a report yesterday that a lemur was picked up and impounded at the town lake animal center. And it was sent home to be quarantined, which is an indication that it had bit someone. A lemur is a good example for you to focus on today and abandoning the current policy for dangerous animals that the county has had since the 1980's to only focusing on dangerous dogs. And cindy will explain the nature of the lemur, but it is an example of the kind of animal that can get rabies, but for which there is no vaccine which can be used to prevent spread. And they exist in this community. The Austin staff has determined they are not dangerous and we'll hand out to you some materials about the kind of damage that a lemur can do and has done to people who tried to keep them as pets instead of keeping them in a zoo or leaving them out in a community such as this. So is a lemur covered under the current order? It is if it's bit someone because under your current order it can be a dangerous animal. Here's the plain language of your current order that you're abandoning. Any animal determined to be a dangerous animal by Travis County or its designee shall be impounded. In adopting this order, any non-dog animal, a cat or any other wild animal other than those that are on the list that must be kept in an animal sanctuary, no longer is subject to the kind of regulations you had in place. 58.008 of your current order that you are abandoning says it shall be an event for any person to keep a permit the same in or about any public house, public place, street or alley in the county. So you're abandoning a policy that says right now if an animal has gone out and attacked someone, bit them, several times, we don't care if it's a dog or not. That dog can't be kept on the public streets any more, can't be taken to a park. And in fact, you can require it to leave the county. You have authority to do that under your rehab control authority for warm blooded mammals as least. The other advice that we gave you and we presented you the advice. I hope that some day you will have a chance to return to it. Is you've also got brand new authority that the legislature gave the county Commissioners court in 2001 that you are ignoring in this proposed order. Under local government code chapter 240 on wild animals, you have three areas of statutory authority to use. These are your three big building blocks. One is rabies control. And you're barely using your authority. You're not exceeding state standards on rabies control. And you're even reducing the kind of rabies control authority that you currently have on the examples i've given you and others, you're narrowing the protection for the public. You're reducing the protection for the public in rabies areas. You also have dangerous wild animals that have to be in essence in a zoo. But the law on that restricted to the list of those animals, and a lemur, for example, is not on that list. You could add to that list and require the same kind of controls to exist on any other wild animals in the third part of your statutory authority that you're ignoring in this proposal under the local government code, 240, it says any wild animal that you consider to be dangerous you can either prohibit it from the county or you can subject it to seg ration. You could just incorporate it into the same regulations you've got under the dangerous wild animal portion of the order. You never did get an answer to your question about the lemur. I don't know if it's even true the lemur was picked up and taken to the animal center last Friday after it bit someone, but was sit home to be home quarantined. The point to you right now is the way you're proposing this order and the endangered species you're making to your current county order even after an attack by some kind of animal and even after that animal demonstrates that it's vicious, other than a dog, you're abandoning any authority that you have for the kinds of things you've been able to do to it in the past. Now, you've done some good stuff. I think the idea of saying if you've got a dog running around loose that that's a reason for impound it. But you've got an unnecessary registration program. I pointed out to you that the current order that the county has requires dogs and cats to be vaccinated against rabies and requires dogs to wear their vaccination to go, which has information on that can go back to the vet and can identify the dog. You don't need a registration program. And why in the world set up a new free and a new registration bureaucracy with all that entails to achieve the kind of results that in 30 years the city of Austin has had with only 12 percent of the dogs registered and i'll bet it's even less than that for cats, it's just another example of passing rules and regulations that are not being enforced. Now, I don't know if it's attitude on the part of the enforcement staff or a lack of resources or both, but we got here not because your ordinance was all that deficient, certainly could be approved and you've -- improved and you've made some improvements to it, but we've gotten here because it wasn't enforced and you're setting yourselves up with leaving more bureaucracy involved and more fees. Scenarios: judge Biscoe you asked about scenarios and you asked about walking down a country road and a dog comes out and attacks another dog, and that person tries to defend their dog, is that provocation. One of the things we recommended to you last week is that you ought to define what provocation is, and we gave you some examples of other counties in the united states that have -- and other organizations that have defined provocation, but you chose not to define provocation yet. It is incorrect to say that under the current order protecting your dog from attack on a public street by another dog is provocation and therefore that attacking dog couldn't be subject to the county's order. That is an incorrect read of the current order. And finally, the issue was currently if you saw a cat -- if the enforcement staff sees a cat that has no sign of vaccination on it, could they impound that cat? I suggest to you that yes, they could because your current order says no person and that would include them because that's the way it's defined in the current order. It includes government people as -- in the word person shall own, keep or harbor within the county any dog or cat over the age of four months unless the dog or cat has a current rabies vaccination. They can impound it using your rabies authority. They don't have to do nothing and just walk away and try to issue a citation to someone if they can't find the owner. So I guess here's the basic question and part of the ides of March warning. Ask yourself will probably actually be -- actually be safer under what you're proposing to do here? Why adopt an unclear, ineffective ordinance imposing new fees and requirements on people that's not going to be enforced any better than you've enforced -- than the enforcement that has occurred so far? One of the other most fundamental things is even the improvements you've made for dangerous dogs. We've pointed out to you have no time limits for the staff to make the determination as to whether or not that dog is dangerous. The hearings and the decision and the trigger points that -- where the owner of the dangerous dog actually has to begin doing anything about it and the public protection actually begins could make months, and there's nothing that it would violate in this order. There's nothing in this order that requires any kind of report to be kept. They may keep reports but it wouldn't be because you ordered in your order for biting information or enforcement information to be gathered. So you're able in the future to evaluate whether or not the kind of advice, not criticism, that you're getting from folks today can be used in the future. And finally on the issue of vagueness, let me point out to you that you use important terms in this order that are not defined and will lead to uncertainty and vagueness and contribute to the lack of enforcement problem. You don't define animals. Animal is defined in your current order, but you deleted that definition from this. You don't define attack, but we gave you examples of definitions of what do you mean by an attack? Is it just barking or chasing? Is that enough? Or do they have to bite? Bodily injured as opposed to serious bodily injury. For some reason the definition of cat is taken out of this ordinance, even though it's in the current order. Do you want the designee who is exercising the authority on behalf of the health authority to have that authority dell gailted to them in -- delegated to them in writing? Domesticated. You've changed the definition of dog from just being a member of the canine family to having to be a domesticated member of the canine family. I couldn't find another county or state that used that definition, so why is Travis County deciding that you only want to regulate all dogs that are domesticated? What's the purpose of that? What does domesticated mean? That's not defined either. Quarantine was defined in the old ordinance. It's not defined here. Livestock is not defined. If a dog attacks some animal, are you goings to leave it to the staff to define livestock. Person. Every lawyer will tell you when you use the term person you need to be clear about what you mean by that, and there was an excellent definition in your current order. It's been cleated from this one. -- deleted from this one. Provocation is not defined. The other thing on this registration is that for some inplexable reason the draft that I see that your adopting you have removed the statement of the penalty for not registering. Thrftion a penalty in there -- there was a penalty in there, class c misdemeanor and one in state law for registration of dogs and cats is a class c misdemeanor in there. But unless it's put someplace else in this action in the marked up copy that we received the penalty that was on top of page 5 under 52004-b, the criminal penalty was removed. Is that an occasion you don't really -- is that an indication you don't really expect the penalty ton imposed? I suggest to you you have a lot of work to do and a lot more study. We hope that you will take a look at the broader issue that is involved way beyond dogs. You've made some improvements on protecting people from dogs, but dangerous animals are still loose in this community.
>> judge, do you want me to answer some of the legal questions or just wait? Wait until later? There are some that are real obvious, like section d of 52003 says we adopt all sections of 822 and 826 without restating, so there are several definitions that are in the stated law. Our dog definition is part of the state law. And I couldn't write down everything, something about picking up cats under the rabies because a person couldn't own or harbor. I don't believe you would say that an animal control officer was owning or controlling that cat because they saw it. I think we all agree that we want to continue to look at expanding the issue, expanding the control regulations that the court wanted, but that we were going to do these now and then look further into the expansion of the court's control. So that that would be something that the door is not closed on that. We didn't want to try and take this as long as that would take to look into. But that would be something that we would do in addition to passing this now, we would look at that in the future with the advice from the animal advisory commission, other members of the public, other groups that could help us on that. So that's not a closed door. We still do have the rabies, we adopted the rabies section. It addresses -- it requires the vaccinations for dogs and cats, which is what we did, but it also says any animal that is known to have bitten or scratched.
>> that stays in place?
>> that's in there because that's part of the state law and we adopted that.
>> what's the evidence of rabies vaccination? How would we know whether a certain dog has been vaccinated?
>> I think when they're vaccinated they're given a tag and a certificate.
>> so why wouldn't that vaccination tag serve as registration? Is that dramatically different?
>> it can. You have to go through tracking down the veterinarian, getting in contact, tracking down the records, and I think the importance of the animal pet registration since we've gone to a three year vaccine, those records may not be accurate. So if you can get an animal pet registration, you can -- hopefully the shelter itself has more current records than the veterinarian may have on the vaccination record. Again, the pet registration program is optional.
>> if it's a good thing to have, we ought to have it. But is there -- when you get you a fascination -- vaccination tag, is there a place for the owner's name?
>> on the tag, no, sir. There's not on the tag. If the individual is is issued a tag to on the individual's collar and they're issued a certificate to keep in their records so that they can provide proof of rabies vaccination if requested. But then the dag tag is going to direct us if we have impounded the animal at the shelter it's going to direct us back to the veterinarian. We'll call them and get a tag number and say do you have contact information for an owner on this tag and rechief the -- retrieve the records that way and then pursue getting in touch with the owner. Would the adopting requirement that the vaccination tag, rabies vaccination tag have the owner's name on that, how simple is it to implement?
>> I think that would be a problem for the veterinarians. They would all have to have an engrafg machine because the tags now have a standard set of information that you have printed up several thousand, whatever your clinic expects to handle, and it's generic information. I think they would object to that.
>> the dog's place of are not is not on the tag.
>> no, it's through the veterinarian and that's where we get the contact information.
>> your honor, if I could just -- the definition that's out in state law on dogs, for example, I’m reading it's in 826.0026, says the canine family, it doesn't say domesticated member of. So you're not adopting -- in the 826.002 --
>> there's another definition section.
>> then we have the issue as to whether or not this court wants to adopt regulations to make reference to more than one source and possible meaning of your ordinance or whether you want to include the definition in your own ordinance as to what you mean. And if you mean domesticated members of the canine family, what do you mean by domesticated as opposed to what these other definitions hold. If you're going to have a penalty for not registering and there is a state -- it is correct that in the state law if you reference that law and use that law there is a penalty in there, a class c misdemeanor. And your honor, do you want a person who picks up your order to have to go look at your statute to even know there is a penalty. You have it in your draft and now it's taken out. What is the public supposed to think about that? Why take it out if you intend to impose it. Why don't you put information as fundamental as that that is a class c misdemeanor if you didn't mean to enforce it in your order?
>> is it a simple matter of putting it back in.
>> we could restate every bit of 822 and 826 and we could restate every definition. That's certainly the court's option and if that's what the court directs we could put every bit of it back in, we could put parts of it back in. I think we were trying to clean up and streamline. We can attach copies of the two state laws as an exhibit to the rule. There are a lot of ways of approaching that, none of them are right or wrong. It's whether the court wants to do it. So either way it's fine, they're legal and we can do it either way. We have specifically referenced the state law. Ns there. But if you want to restate the penalty provisions, we can do that. If you want to restate all the provisions, we can do that. Speaking of what I want to do, let's hear the next resident.
>> on the daij russ dog there, as far as the -- dangerous dog there, as far as the timing -- believe it or not, we have responded to a lot of th comments where either if a person is appealing the decision, the law gives you 30 days to meet the requirements. If you file an appeal during that time, you either have to meet the requirements or post a sufficient bond that would be protection -- financial protection for anyone that would be attacked by your dog. You're still subject to the restraint law before, during and after any kind of determination as to a dangerous dog. So there are provisions to give added protection while that determination is going on. The you've got the 30 days under the state law to meet the requirements anyway. If you file an appeal, which might appear to extend that, appeals can go on for a long time, that's right, that's why we put in that you either have to go ahead and meet the requirements or post a sufficient bond.
>> in the dangerous dog question?
>> yes.
>> hello. I’m the chair of the animal advisory commission, a landowner in precinct 3, and director of the Austin zoo. And first i'd like to clarify something dor rin da had said, the animal advisory commission has had an emergency meeting on the 22nd of February to discuss the previous draft, and we did state we thought that there should be clarification on dangerous dog versus dangerous animal, and that should be addressed. It was also the recommendation that the county adopt a restraint law, and we even provided sample language of such, and that the rest of it go back to the drawing board and be reworked. And I do commend you leaving the dangerous wild animal portion the way it was set in 22, but we'd recommend that you expand that list to include non-human primates, sven must reptiles, members of the rack coon family and some others that I would be more than happy to assist you on that list. The last time I was here to speak I suggested that dogs were not the only animals that could be dangerous, and again, that includes monkeys, cobras, etcetera. And I see from the draft that you didn't take my suggestion to heart, possibly thinking that I was either overreacting or talking hypothetically. Just this past week we've already talked about it, it's come to my attention that an approximately one-year-old male lemur has possibly bitten someone. And this animal, which is a mammal, has no approved rabies vaccine. It is now under home quarantine. If a dog bites someone, it's impounded either at town lake or the vet's office, even if it shows current rabies certification, unless the bite victim okays it. Well, this is a lemur and there's no approved rabies vaccine. We don't know the circumstances and now it's back in a home for someone obviously ill prepared to care for it. In fact, I have e-mail transmissions from this woman over a year ago where an 11 week old was already biting her and she was hitting it in the head with newspapers. I warned her that he was going to bite and he did. And I’m warning you that these -- this kind of incident will happen and the increase -- the frequency will increase. These animals are available on the internet, they're available at pet stores here, even though they're an endangered species, they're unregulated. They're not on the dangerous wild animal list. They have very long canine insizerers, and -- incisors, and they can leap on you. A dog can't jump on your head, a lemur can jump on your face and las certify rate you like a race other on he -- las rate you. There are no regulations in the proposed draft that would prevent someone from taking their lemur down a public county road and letting them run loose. And there's no approved rabies vaccine. Should you choose again to ignore my suggestions of adding non-human primates or other dangerous animals to the list, it was only a couple of weeks ago I was in here, one way to add that would be to add them on to a dwa. I would be happy to assist you with that. Going on to just dogs and cat, the registration fee is simply a tax. They try to window dress it in that it will help you get your pet back. It's a responsible thing to do. And all the services they say they provide for you, curb service, immediate phone calls, etcetera, etcetera, all cost a fee. They all incur costs upon the city or county. And there's no physical note in here that shows you how much it costs to run the registration program versus what they're taking in. And if you're only taking in 12 percent in the city, I could pretty well bet the zoo that the county residents are going to be even less compliant. The only enforcement of a registration fee, if you decide to do that, is if the animal is impounded. And knowing people and animals, most of them aren't going to come in and claim a cat that they know is not registered when they can go get another one out of the box on the corner for free. They're just not going do it. The animal advisory commission also said that if you were going to do a registration fee that there be a lifetime spay neuter thing and we did unanimously recommend that. We have been recommending that, that it be on the city, so if the argument we want the county to look like the city, we're trying to get everybody on the same plate if that's going to be imposed. But I for one think it's just an added later that doesn't really protect the public for safety reasons. Again, i'd like you to look at other animals besides dogs that are in my opinion far more dangerous.
>> vub been over to the state legislature to see about getting lemurs and any other animal that you think ought to be added to the list of the eight specifically named animals? Yes. Non-human primates were on the original state lists, and because of lobbying by research facilits, even though they weren't exempt, they took it off the list because they didn't think it would get passed before.
>> my question is did you propose legislation? Did something get filed in this session we're in right now?
>> no.
>> because wire working on the cruelty -- owe we're working on the cruelty laws. But non-human primates are restricted in many other communities, including san antonio, arlington, dallas, etcetera.
>> i'd also like to talk to you about pet registration because I think you are hearing some things that are misguided. Ms. Pullman just said pet registration is optional. That's not true. It's optional that the vets sell the tags because Travis County has kind of a weird system. And a lot of parts of Texas, houston, for example, it's mandatory. When you go in to get your dog or cat's rabies shots, that tag is added to your bill. There's no argument. It's added. Travis County many years ago kind of opted out of that program, so the vets have the option of selling it or not selling it. And some vets just won't do it. And some vets do. So the optional part is whether the vet chooses to sell it or not sell it. I don't know whether the five of you live in the county or not, and I don't know whether the five of you have pets or not, but as soon as you vote on this, you're going to have to go into your vet and you're going to have to ask your vet for a pet registration tag. It is not optional. Because if your pet gets out of its yard and gets picked up, it's a big fine if that tag's not on there. I have a real happy go lucky golden retriever in a five foot fence. He's seven years old, never been out of his fence. Right now he has two tags on his collar, he's got his own personal tag with his name on it and he's got a state mandated rabies tag that's got my vet's name on it and his phone number. And so he's got two tags, one with -- this law, I’m assuming something is going to happen and you're going to pass this. And then there will be a third tag, which is basically a tax. Let's just be honest here. The third one is a tax. It's not for any other purpose. And so he'll have three tags on his collar, but with those other two tags, if he would get out, he could get back to me. So with this third pet registration tag, if he would get out, I’m not going to get another 100-dollar fine or whatever it is. That just keeps me from getting a citation, and right here on your bullet point number 1 it says registration, penalty, citation. So if you go to b under registration, there is a citation -- a penalty. Okay, so it's not optional. The animal commission, because we were unanimous in wanting a lifetime registration because the rabies program went down to three years. Every three years there's a reanz shot. It used to be every year. When it was every year that's when it was 12% in the city. Now that it's every three years, it's dropped -- we think it's dropped way below 12%. So the 12% you heard testimony on, we think it's dropped -- in Austin we think it's dropped way, way below 12%. So you're maybe passing a law that is in -- in Austin if it's way below 12% of registered animals, in the county you could be passing a law where you've got a law that four or five percent of the animals are registered. That's not much of a program because I’m not sure how many people are going to register their barn cats. I’m not sure.
>> my name is grace wells. And I want to talk about two things. Number one, I want to refer to the barn cat thing. About a week ago -- first of all, my husband and I live on a farm. We have sheep, goats, chickens, cats, dogs. But the cat that showed up in our little what we call the potting shed where we keep our -- all our animal feed and so forth is a stray. And we're not able to get within 12 feet of her other him. I haven't been even close enough to ascertain which sex I’m dealing with. And she comes by, and because there's feed there, it attracts mice and rodents. And she's been cleaning them up, which is fine with me, but I can't get near her. I don't imagine she's ever had a rabies shot. Am I going to get in trouble because I haven't paid a five dollar registration fee few a county I can't even catch? -- for a cat I can't even catch. That's about cats. Okay. Now I want to talk about dogs. I understand why people would want other people to keep their dogs on their own property, but I would also like to say that my husband and I have working dogs who protect our sheep and goats and chickens from other wild dogs. In the back of us is a 500-acre cattle ranch. We've talked to these people and they're happy to have our dogs chase the coyotes off of their property too. And my question is, is there some way you could make an exemption for working dogs? Because these dogs are not going to -- when they get to the property line they're not going to stop chasing the coyote off. They won't say that's the end of my property, I can't chase that coyote.
>> is the person going to complain? If the person is not complaining... -- [overlapping speakers] that's not going to happen. If it is, we have reasonable people and reasonable places that say that's not what we were after.
>> now, if that working dog decides, oh, I think I’m going to go chew on some of the next dor neighbors fowl or livestock, that's a problem. If your dog is doing what you just described there, who is going to complain?
>> I should hope that nobody would.
>> there you go.
>> from an enforcement perspective, say the adjacent neighbor does not mind the working dog coming on their property. So what's the enforcement answer?
>> first of all, we would never hear about that.
>> you would never hear about it. We don't have the resources and we will never have the resources to go around and look for dogs that are not on their property. We haven't had those kind of resources in many, many, many years. The old idea of the dog catcher driving around and looking for loose dogs really doesn't exist. What we have to do is respond to complaints in the neighborhood. So if we don't get a complaint, we're never going to go anywhere near that property to even go see those dogs.
>> answer the first question about the cat. If the stray cat is not hers, there is no registration requirement.
>> that's right. If it's a stray cat that doesn't belong to you, then there's no requirement that you register it. Again, the cat situation, the state law requires if you're going to do a registration program that you have to do dogs and cats. The cat situation is a problem. We periodically in the city, it's already in place, we do periodically issue citations for registration and vaccinations on cats. Typically it is a health, sanitary situation where we're using this tool to try to get a home -- a homeowner to behave more responsibly with their pet. But we're not driving around doing any kind of enforcement on cats at all typically.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> I’m fine. As long as they don't try to take my dogs because then they will have to deal with me and I’m worse than a dog.
>> we hear you. [ laughter ]
>> yes, sir?
>> excuse me. My name is jim (indiscernible), lake shore drive. Just when I thought things were getting better, aleshire comes along and says all that's wrong with it. And -- last week we talked about registration and ostensibly it seemed like a good idea, but now they're saying such a low amount of participation and it just becomes a tax. And the lady who was from Lakeway was here last time and I think registration would be okay, but she was very adamant that lock down would not be okay, and that was the point I’m making is all the people in the county live in the county so they don't have to keep their dogs in containment. But I can't answer that. That's just my gut feeling. But the last lady that was here, she wanted to integrate all these other an animals in there, and up I think one that ultimately has to address these other animals, including chimpanzees that just shredded that guy in los angeles. But what brought us here originally is dogs had mauled a girl out there by apache shores. And I think we ought to stick to the dog problems only. I think we ought to stick to the dog problems only involving humans. Pets are property and they can be replaced. Livestock can be replaced. But when it attacks a human, then it's certainly a whole different ballgame. Dangerous animals, when does the list ever end? And in whose eyes is it dangerous? And cats, are they really a danger? Sure, they can have rabies, but is that really a big problem? Certainly with medicines to counteract rabies, a person won't have to die from it. One of the salient points is that I don't think that there's enough levels of danger here. Either the dog is dangerous or it's not. I don't think that's right. I think that's turning a blind eye to something which clearly has different levels of threat as it does with felons in the society. And then the city wants to neuter or sterilize, but it not the -- it's not simply snipping the vasectomy of the dog, a male dog was attacking people. It needs to get treated with the dreaded c word, the castration and that will take a lot of the threat out of him. Certainly the id tag, responsible pet owners will have a collar that has a phone number on there. A person walks along and sees the phone number on the back of the dog's neck and takes his cell phone and hey, I found your dog down here, you better come and get him, he's causing a problem. I think a lot of that will change, but I think that you should keep the city of Austin involvement to a minimum because they have struggled with this for some long and really not gotten ahold of the problem anyway. And that summarizes my comments. Thank you. We don't live in the city, we don't want to live in the city, we don't agree with their way of dealing with problems. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, judge, my name is bess Davis. I’m also a member of the animal advisory commission, but as in the past I will speak mostly from my own perspective. Although some of my views do correlate with those of the animal advisory commission. At our most recent meeting, as they both indicated, we did ask you to pass a restraint ordinance. We were very supportive of the county being able to pick up a loose dog that's running loose. You have a provision for picking up packs of dogs, but we wanted you to focus on a single loose dog as causing a problem, resolving that problem because you will have the impoundment capability. And then down the road dealing with some of the complicated issues like dangerous dog. Because of that i'd like to give a couple of scenarios about dangerous dogs and just how tricky that can be in expanding the definition beyond what the state already has for dangerous dogs -- for a dog attacking a human being. This is in no way to say that I think a dog attacking another small dog or a small cat should be okay. I don't think it's okay. I think the way to deal with that is that people should keep their dogs indoors or keep them on a leash. However, if your dog does get loose and your dog chases a cat up into a tree, I don't think you should be -- you should be subject to all the dangerous dog provisions simply because that dog was being a dog. The way it's written right now, if a person saw my dog chase a cat up into a tree, that person could have reason to believe my dog could cause that cat harm, and it could, and then my dog would be subject to a dangerous dog provision and a dangerous dog hearing, and I just don't think you should have that. I think you should require people to keep their dog indoors or on a leash or on their property, and if the dog gets out and it's repeatedly getting owrks you should impound that dog to keep them from chasing small animals, cats and getting into fights with other dogs. But the very expensive, dangerous dog hearing that you're going to bring on if every time a dog chases a cat it's subject to dangerous dog provisions, I don't think that's a good use of staff time and enforcement time and administrative time. You should have dangerous dog provisions that truly identify dangerous dogs. And for everything else you should use your impoundment capability and keep the dog from chasing a cat. I wouldn't want somebody else's dog to chase my cat, but I also don't think that that dog is a dangerous dog just because it chased my cat. It just doesn't seem right to me and it seems like an expensive proposition. I've asked for a physical note and you don't have one. If you start to have dangerous dog hearings for all the different provisions you've now added to dangerous dogs, I think it could be a misuse of staff time. I also have a question about when two dogs get into a fight, as dogs may do, and if two people break up the fight -- if I call for my neighbor to help me and we both break up that fight and a person gets bitten breaking up the fight, I don't think that's a dangerous dog. That dog never would have bitten them, but sometimes dogs get into fights where it's not a fight to the death, it's a fight to like the territory, for a bone or something, and human beings stepping in and trying to break it up get bitten and I don't think those dogs should be declared dangerous. You should tell people to do reasonable things, keep your dogs on a leash, keep them indoors, don't take them to places unrestrained where they will get into fights. If they do get into fights, two people stepping in trying to break up a fight and one person getting bitten doesn't make it a dangerous dog. If it me breaking up a fight between me and my dogs, I’m not going to go and declare one of my dogs dangerous. But if I call for help with a neighbor because there's a dog fight and a neighbor helps me out and that neighbor gets bitten, I just don't think that should be a dangerous dog and I don't think you should use staff time or administrative hearing time to have those kinds of hearings. You should rewrite this, and I don't have the answer for how you would write it, but you should rewrite it to look at those things and they should not be dangerous dogs and truly focus on the dangerous dogs. And that's why we've been saying you need more time to do that. That's what the animal advisory commission said and that's what I’m asking you to please do. Because my big concerns are what that would do to people who know have to go and get the insurance and get all the -- all the things for something that really should be there just for a truly dangerous dog.
>> is the commission planning to work with the city of Austin on dangerous dog language in the future?
>> can the commission do that?
>> does the commission plan to?
>> yes, we would like to. Now that the county has opened this up, and we are supportive of your efforts to be consistent with the city, then we would like to bring it all out.
>> dangerous dogs opened this up.
>> right.
>> we were sitting here doing nothing.
>> and I would take issue or I would contradict that there is no physical note attached. The reamty is yes indeed there is a fiscal note. Under our enforcement strategies what we talk about in implementation number 3, we would utilize existing animal control resours for the next 120 days. Then analyze service demands and response times to evaluate needs for additional resources. If we do that that takes us to July 15th. We basically -- there is not going to be any fiscal impact over the next 120 days. If there are indeed fiscal requirements, we are just 10 weeks sthort of being in a -- short of being in a new fiscal year. And I seem to be confident that if there are issues that we need to take immediate action to that we will be working with health and human services to see about internal allocations as we do every year to see about internally covering if we choose to see that the existing resources don't cover what we want to do. And also during this time we can evaluate, and if there's something that needs to go into next year's budget deliberations, we're going to have plenty of time to do all of that. But we do have a fiscal note and it basically says we will use the resources that we've got right now in a more efficient and effective way. Right now she's got this donut thing where she's got officers that literally have to jump over the city of Austin because she can't have this kind of seamless delivery of services because the rules are different in the city of Austin versus out in the county. She's going to be able to reallocate things and better utilize her forces if the rules are exactly the same in the city and the county. And she doesn't have different kinds of enforcement strategies and different kinds of rules that they're going to have to do. The same people can be doing back and forth between the city and the county and we will be going to a zone defense as opposed to what we've got right now.
>> I am very sorry that I misspoke. I was not aware of a fiscal note. I've requested a fiscal note in the past. And at the time that I requested it, I was told that there wasn't a fiscal note. And it's been since I requested it and the other times it was not given to me. I would ask my colleagues on the commission if they had gotten a fiscal note and they had told me they they hadn't.
>> we're providing you the information right now, and that is that we are going too troy to make this work over the next 120 days using the exact same dollar resources, but we're going to be able to give flexibility to dorinda to be able to reutilize her forces and again kind of go into a zone defense as opposed to her having to literally have county officers and they might have to go from far southwest to far northeast simply because you had two different sets of rules and you would have people that had two different sets of requirements in the back of their minds.
>> and while we're talking about the fiscal impact, I was speaking about the issue of administrative hearings for a dog chasing a cat up into a tree and trying to fight. So if that's a truly dangerous dog or if it's not a dangerous dog. And that fiscal impact that I would like this county to avoid. Do not put a provision in place that would allow people to call for similar complaints that require an administrative hearing, that you then have to spend your resources on that. Even if you reallocate resources under the existing county budget, you will be taking resources away from something else. One of the things that constantly comes up at the animal advisory commission are things that we would like to discuss people to do that they don't have time to do because of lack of financial resources. If you take staff time away from something that is currently being done and shifted over, if you take a staff person right now, for example, that's helping in your office and you shift that person over to another responsibility, we previously talked about not having administrative hearings being from within the office, but then we will have to field those complaint and send them to someone else. That is going to be a cost to that office operating. The administrative hearings, whenever you decide to put -- wherever you decide to put them administratively, you will have to fund that. And as you're putting additional responsibilities on the staff, whatever that staff is, you will have to pay for it with additional dollars or you have to take somebody away from somebody else to do something that I’m hoping you don't need to do. And that is look at every dog that chases a cat up into a tree and that someone chooses to complain about because of reasons they believe the dog would hurt the cat. It's written that way right now, so you have the danger of having to do that. I also wanted to talk about pet registration. And I do believe my colleagues on the animal advisory commission who call it a pet tax, one of the things that you've heard in defense of a pet registration is that that's the thing that gets an animal home to an owner the fastest. And I have very strong disagreement with that. Ij the thing that gets an animal home to its owner the fastest is to have a tag that has your name and your phone number on it. I've picked up many dogs in the middle of the night and I’m out driving around and I see a loose dog, then I pick up that dog. And the thing that helps me get that animal to the owner without having to take it to the town lake animal center or call it is if that person has put a tag on it with their phone number. If a person goes to pet smart or one of the little kiosks that we have in different pet stores and buys a tag and puts their name on it like kathy said she did, as long as we can keep that tag on their pet, they can last for a very long time, three or four years, and if they need to get another one, they can get it at a very convenient place instead of having to go to their veterinarian. If someone doesn't have a pet registration tag, then that person either turns the animal into town lake, which is possibly -- definitely some kind of administrative cost there for the processing. And then they need to call that person to come pick the animal up. That's not going to get them home the fastest and it isn't going to have a cost to the taxpayers because we don't fully pay for the cost of operating the shelter on the basis of the pet registration tag. So the way to get the animal home the fastest is to have your phone number on it and it doesn't have to go to the shelter in the first place. I would love to see the county promote people having tags with their name and phone number on it and a way of getting animals home the fastest without coming to the shelter at all. As we mentioned before, the rabies registration tag also should have that information -- also has information where you can track somebody down at the veterinarian. But a pet registration where people call the animal center to find out wherever that animal -- who that animal belongs to and have to keep the animal at home or turn them into the shelter is a cost to the taxpayer and it's not the way to get the animal home the fastest. And I do want to mention the return rate for cats. It's bad enough for dogs, but for cats the return rate is about two percent. So we have a registration requirement for cats in the city of Austin, and that does not seem to get any cats home hardly at all because there's a two percent return rate on cats. So make no mistake about it, it is a tax on people who are otherwise doing everything correctly. And that's what i've been trying to propose with the pet registration. If you have your animal already spray spayed and neutered and if you have your animal on your property, please don't require those people to have a registration. Again, you've said that the enforcement will be complaint driven. If you get a complaint from somebody and an animal control officer goes out to investigate a loose dog and sees a house next door with a bunch of cats and asks are these cats registered, and they're not because the person didn't know about it, I don't want that person to have to pay a penalty for a cat for not having them registered. They're doing everything else right. Either don't do pet registration at all, or if you do it, give lifetime pet registration with one lifetime fee for every -- for someone that is doing everything else correctly. In particular I’m saying getting their animals spayed or neutered. So these are my two big requests that you take out what you did on the dangerous dog until you have a chance to stick some -- look at the flaws in it and you also remove pet registration unless you just don't have it at all or only do it in a way that penalizes people you do want to penalize, and that is the people who have dangerous animals.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner.
>> are you ready for a motion. What we are missing on draft attachment a is to fill in the blank for the city of Austin fee per day impoundment and boarding. That's the only thing we've got left blank on our attachment a. We're trying to match the city of Austin's number.
>> if you will tell me what it is currently, i'll tell you what the city's is. The current impound right is $35 for the first impound, 45 for the second, 55 to the third, $8 a day for boarding care, $6 for a rabies vaccination. And all animals are required to have a rabies vaccination when they leave the health shelter unless they can show proof that they already have it. The city of Austin fee structure is a 40-dollar impound fee for all impound, and that is inclusive of the rabies vaccination fee, so there's no additional charge for that. There has been a 50-dollar deposit for impact animals. If you get your animals sterilized, we will refund that $50 to you. So the impound fee that includes the vaccination, $50 for intact animals which you could get refunded to you if you get your animal spayed or neutered and submit proof. The city of Austin board and care is five dollars per day.
>> I think in terms of simplicity and that we go with the city of Austin approved per day impound and boarding fees, which is exactly what she just said there in term of if it's a 40-dollar fee, it's the 50-dollar deposit related to I am tact animals and five dollars a day on the board. It's the blanks we would be filling in.
>> basically just adopt the city's fees.
>> I want to make sure it was read into the record. Our is more confusing and I think it's a cleaner way to have the exact same fee structure on the per day impounding and boarding.
>> any objection tow that?
>> with that, judge, I would move approval of the ordinance that we have before us that comes recommended to you from the subcommittee that was assigned to this particular task. With that said, I would hope that we would get a report back in terms of enforcements, a report back on enforcement in the next 60 days to see how we're doing and see if there are any unintended consequences that need to be brought to the attention of the Commissioners court. That we make the commitment to revisit the idea of lifetime registration at whatever point the city of Austin acts on lifetime registration. And that we add to this list. Health and human services has already found some internal reallocation within their own department for $10,000 to be targeted and earmarked for sterilizations of animals to occur in our low income county neighborhoods, and that would be part of the match program that dorinda has mentioned to us on many occasions. She's got donations that come in. And our 10,000 will be matched by 10,000 from this fund so that we can have a sterilization program to match what's already going on in the city of Austin. And that any kind of schedule in terms of neighborhoods, that that be properly shared with members of the commission ers court. And if anybody has any suggestions on neighborhoods that ought to be on that top five, top 10 list, I’m certainly looking for people to give that input to dorinda. In addition to the draft that is before us, we have listed implementations ongoing and implementation strategies related to education. That that be adopted as well. And the enforcement strategies that that be adopted as well. And again, as we mentioned when pat was up here, we're going to be utilizing existing animal control resources with the next 120 120 days and then we'll see where we are. With the exception of the $10,000 that we talked about in internal reallocation. I’m stopping.
>> I second.
>> we will need a separate vote on registration. Any objection to pulling that out?
>> no objection.
>> so we're voting on the proposal without the registration provision. Discussion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. On registration, I move that instead of a registration requirement, we have an owner identification requirement which can be met by having an owner identification tag indicating the name, address and phone number of the owner, or if the pet owner can figure out a way to get the same information on the rabies tag front or back, then that would be sufficient. If our goal is to enable us to locate the owner and get the animal back to the owner, then I think that would satisfy it. The other purpose of this is basically to put this on hold until we see what the commission and city of Austin do. And that we try to follow suit. That's the motion on the registration part. Is there a second?
>> I second that.
>> any discussion of that motion?
>> just a question. Because one of the things that did come up with a lot of on our folks is saying are you going to make my cat or dog wear the tag? And that was a really big deal because a lot of them get irritated, they don't want to wear the tag. It's almost like I’m required to have my license, but do I have to have it on my person at all times. As long as you can show proof of it, that's what's important.
>> it needs to be on the dog or cavment.
>> that would be contrary to what illustrate after folks told us in that they didn't want to have fluff fi --
>> this is a whole lot better than registration. Wherever the registration tag would have gone, but the owner identification tag.
>> but the registration tag was not required. We said should. We did not require it because we got from a lot of folks related to feral cats and other kinds of things and other kinds of dogs that don't wear any kind of collar at all.
>> the same kind of language for owner identification tag, no problem. I’m saying let's substitute owner identification tag for --
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> what I have in mind basically, instead of going through the registration tax as you called it was to basically provide some sort of tag that would enable the responding officer or residents to identify the owner of the pet and connect -- get the pet back to the owner. At the same time, if there's a better recommendation from city of Austin and the commission in the days ahead, then we will just revisit this.
>> judge? I don't want people to think who have come down here and spent a lot of time on this thing that we don't care about those comments. It makes all the sense in the world. Given that we've had this lemur incident, there are things that have come to our attention, and I think that we need to work, and I’m sure that the -- I don't know whether it's the animal advisory commission or whoever it is that works on there being some other animals that probably need consideration to be registered. I mean, I’m more than happy to probably weigh in on that. Given that I’m not an attorney, I probably could give you a decent definition of a attack, domesticated, person. It may not be the legal definition, but I think most ninth graders can give you the definition of those words. I just -- what I don't want, y'all, is for people to look at this process and go, what in the world are they doing at the Commissioners court? Because we -- I can't tell you how many times in the last month and a half people have approached me, everywhere from albertson's to wherever i've been, and said, are you ever going to do anything about this dog incident? And do you know what? Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed whenever I have to say I know that we've been at it for three months and I know that we really thought that this was going to be easy, but, of course, once we start -- not that anybody had any ulterior motives for taking us down the road of, you know, if you do that, what does this mean? I’m very confident that reasonable people can sit down and say, okay, are there some things that need to be clarified or are there some other animals that needed to be added into this dangerous category? Then absolutely, I’m willing and game to do that, but I think that what we are doing today, y'all, is trying to respond some 12 weeks ago where people were concerned about the life of a little girl and then just being able to live in their neighborhood. Now, are some of these things going to cause us to go, well, you know, you just opened the pandora's box there. I don't think that running somebody's cat up the tree -- now I guess we get into the question, was the tree in your yard or was the tree in your neighbor's yard? Did the dog belong to the tree's yard or the neighbor's yard? Holy toledo? Can we get away from that and get into what we're really talking about, which is just common sense with being able to take an animal that has left the yard and has mauled your dog either on the street or in your yard or out of that person's yard, that's all I ever wanted to do with this. And hopefully this will move us in the direction of giving people out on the street -- comfort that I’m willing to work on this. And maybe we have to come up -- I’m not trying to give the animal advisory commission any undue work. I don't know, maybe that's something we're -- that the Commissioners appoint a couple of people and say, okay, if you're really involved and you really want to be part of weighing in on some of these things, maybe that's something that we look at so it doesn't go and get the system clogged up. But I do think that this six-month teal that we're looking at in the event that we find, holy smokes, we have a lot of things coming at us that we didn't mean to clog up the advisory commission on all these kind of things. I think folks can say, I told you so, and i'll go, okay, well, I’m -- I was a little short sighted on that. But don't be upset by what we have done today actionwise that we haven't weighed in and listened to you. I think you all know that -- I don't believe that we've spent as many hours as we have, and having read the e-mails. And i've learned a lot, so I’m appreciative of y'all sending that stuff to me because some of those things I didn't know about. But I’m ghad that we passed this thing. If we haven't, i'll vote again with both hands.
>> judge, will you take it as a friendly in terms of our intent, that we're starting our program with an identification requirement, not a registration requirement, but that we could revisit registration if and when the city of Austin takes up the issue of lifetime registration? Would you consider that friendly that we can bring that back up at that point?
>> that's friendly.
>> great. Then I’m there.
>> we need to discuss in executive session this afternoon and can call it back up. Any more discussion of that motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Let's chat over lunch and if we need to call it up this afternoon, we will. We appreciate -- the work goes on.
>> I’m just making terms in clarification of the base ordinance that we did that that included the efforts related to education, enforcement and the internal reallocation related to the low cost air emissions. > it does.
>> thank you very much. Appreciate it.

move that we reconsider item no. 4, which involves the county, Travis County governing animal control and related matters. We are taking this into executive session to receive some legal advice. So it's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act.

we have returned from executive session, discussed item no. 4 regarding Travis County governing animal control. There is a little clarifying language that we received legal advice on. And would like to offer at this time. It is in writing. It regards basically elimination of the registration requirement and substituting softer legal language instead. And do you have it there.
>> in place of the current [indiscernible] which is registration, this will be substituted. Travis County does not require dogs and cats to be registered, but strongly recommends that all dog and cat owners place an animal identification tag on their pet, which includes pertinent identification information such as add and phone number of the owner, either on a straight tag or imprinted on the back of the rabies tag. This will allow quicker return of stray dogs and cats to their owners and may avoid unnecessary impound of pets. And if that agrees with the intent, then I would ask the court to authorize the signature of the order with the clean attached copy of the new rules as soon as I can get that to you tomorrow.
>> that would be my motion.
>> makes sense to me.
>> and --
>> with that clarifying language.
>> Commissioner Gomez seconded that motion. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. With Commissioner Daugherty absent. He had to run to another meeting.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 12:34 PM

March 15, 2005Item 4

March 15, 2005
Item 4