Travis County Commissioners Court

January 18, 2005
Item 28

Number 28 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to adopt an ordinance requiring owners to restrain certain pets in unincorporated areas of Travis County. We did appoint a committee to work further on this item in our meeting a couple of weeks back, and that committee did meet, and we did on Friday get an outline of the committee's recommendations. And we tried to send that outline to all of the residents who had indicated to us that they wanted to see the draft in e-mail. And I think we missed a few because I got one yesterday, but I did send it to that person, so what the committee is recommending basically is that the court give direction today, right, about where to go from here, but there are specific recommendations that you'd like to get our response to. So why don't we have the recommendations laid out and get the court to respond a little bit. Then we have some residents who have come down to give comments also. In my view, we have gotten enough e-mails and phone calls regarding the problem, so our focus now is on what, if anything,, should we do to address these problems. And it's the what should we do question that the committee looked at and is ready to give comments and recommendations on today, right?
>> that's correct. I'm the executive manager for Travis County health and human services and veterans services. And just for the benefit of those who might just be hearing this discussion today, I did want to restate a couple of historical points. And the first is that Travis County does contract with the city of Austin to provide animal control services in the unincorporated areas of Travis County. And that previous to this discussion, we had not had an ordinance that in a comprehensive way addressed containment issues related to pet owners and their pets being able to run through the unincorporated areas without the pet owner's control. So with that said, I will turn it over to dorinda pull yam, who is the service manager for this area with the city of Austin to walk you through the recommendations for the committee.
>> thank you, sherry. Our recommendations first of all are to completely repeal the current animal are regulations that we have. There are a number of inconsistencies and problems in the regulations that we would like to take this opportunity to clean up and get a consistent, good set of regulations for us to deal with. We would repeal them completely and then implement the new regulations, which summarizing would do this: it would enhance the dangerous dog law. The current language requires that a vicious attack or very bad attack has to take place before we declare an animal dangerous. The new language would give us the ability to deal with aggressive animals before an actual, terrible event took place, so it would be a much more proactive, dangerous animal law. The next item would be to implement a restraint law that states that it is the responsibility of the pet owner to keep their dogs on their own property. Third would be to implement a pet registration law, and the pet registration law would accomplish two things. It would get more animals identified so that when you do have problem animals, you have a better chance of identifying who the animal is and who it belongs to. And it also helps the animal because if we pick up an animal and bring them into the shelter, animals that are registered through a pet registration program are significantly more likely to be reclaimed and go back home because we have current information about who the animal belongs to. So I think it's an important part of the restraint option if you're going to be picking up loose dogs, I think it's an important safeguard for the dogs to have a pet registration program in place so you have a better chance of getting them back to their home. With that pet registration law we would do a program to go with that where we do a red carpet ride home, meaning if the dog's registered, the officers can call in, we give them the information to take that dog back home without even bringing it to the shelter as long as there's somebody to take custody of the dog, we would not take the dog down to the shelter. We guarantee medical care for the dog up to $500 at the emergency rooms. We have a 24 hour hotline where people can call in if they find a dog and get information to get the dog back home. So there's a number of benefits we put with the program so it's not just paying the licensing fee, but you also get some benefits out of that. So those are basically the changes to the laws that we would see happening to improve our situation in Travis County. With that we would also do some customer service improvements to try to improve our response times and that sort of thing. And then we would also implement some education strategies to try to get more voluntary compliance with responsible -- get more responsible pet ownership through voluntary compliance with the laws. And then it also recommended that we take a look at how we can get some low cost or no cost generalization programs into some of the county neighborhoods because sterilized animals -- you have less of a tendency to roam if they're not looking for mating opportunities. And they will be producing less unwanted births, who then may be abandoned out there and contribute to the problem of the abandonment issue. So those are a summary of our strategies.
>> it would be also important to tell you that the committee discussed this, what we're also looking for was a kind of consistency between whatever rules would be applicable within the city of Austin and what rules would be out there for the unincorporated. Because drin da has a situation with her animal control officers kind of like the donut. These are the rules within the city of Austin and then there's something different outside. If she has something that is consistent throughout that territory, then she's going to be able to utilize her officers in a much more effective way in terms of like zone coverage as opposed to you've got something happening on one end of the county that literally gets that person that knows those rules to the other end of the county. So this will allow her to utilize her folks much more efficiently. The other thing that we used as kind of our validation of what we were doing is we used as our test cases on opposite ends -- remember the pyrennes dogs, the dogs that weren't hurting anybody, they were just kind of herding animals, how will what we're proposing impact those dogs? And then we had the opposite end in terms of something that would work on the dogs from hell that was terrorizing a neighborhood and we didn't seem to have anything that seemed to be working. So we tried to find that middle ground. I think one of the most important things was that it was a restraint law that states it's the responsibility of pet owners to keep their dogs on their property, but it doesn't tell you how to do so. It just says, the dogs are required to be on a leash only when they are off their property and unconfined. So it really puts the responsibility on the owner to take care of things as opposed to the dog that can't read a book and know that they're not doing something.
>> it sounds like a lot of common sense has gone into this. So thanks.
>> so now we say, okay, it's the owner's responsibility to keep their dog on the owner's property. So do we just leave it at that and let the owner figure out how to do it?
>> yes, sir, that's what I recommended because that way we don't get into a law that's very predescriptive about how they do that. Some of the leash law languages will say there has to be a fence or there has to be a tether or a particular method of restraining the animal. And for a middle ground here this says you have to keep your animal on your property. If you can do that with a fence, that's great. If you need to tether the animal because it's not reliable, then that's the pet owner's responsibility to solve that problem and keep them on their property. If they can do that by voice control and the dog never leaves their property and it lays on the front porch all day, that's fine because that dog will not be in violation. A dog that will wait on its front porch all day would not be in violation of this kind of language. If you use pript active language -- priptive language like must be tethered and must be behind a fence, then a dog that's 15-year-old old and can't walk out of the yard is technically in violation every time you lit it outside. So this language says the owner needs to keep them on their property and they need to figure out how to do that. We will only deal with it when the animal is off its property.
>> another important change had to do with going with a judicial determination of whether a dog was aggressive versus administrative. Would you speak to that because that's what you do in the city of Austin and it makes things go a whole lot easier?
>> correct. The other thing we've asked for in the dangerous dog law is to give us the authority to make it administrative decision about declaring a dog dangerous rather than having to go through a judicial process and take it to a judge. That way we can make much more ex-speed yent decisions and have it in place more quickly than the process we go through now and we can have people making those decisions that are experts in these issues and have a better understanding of what the propensity of the animal may be given the behaviors that we're seeing rather than taking it to a judge, who may not be familiar with dogs and their behaviors and animal irnz issues. We feel like that would be a more ex-speed yent way to get the animals who are dangerous, declared dangerous and get them into secured enclosures and get it resolved more quickly.
>> so we believe that -- we think we have the legal authority to have complete discretion over what dogs are dangerous and which ones are not? There need to be some standards set forth in the ordinance?
>> there are some standards that we're look at here with different standards, but the law does law the county to adopt different standards from the state law as long as they are more stringent. They can't be less stringent, but we can be more stringent. I believe what we're proposing to to here would come under that category. We can define dangerous dog, we can implement our rules as long as they are equal to or more stringent than the state standard. And that's what we're looking at.
>> but the --
>> we'll have some standards.
>> but the individual person working in the field will not be able to just define dangerous dog on a case-by-case basis, right? There will be language in the ordinance that sets general parameters?
>> right. There still will be standards and we'll use some of the state standards. And what we'll add to is one, when you have your restraint law, you have that, this enables you to pick up the dog that's off the property and then deal with determining is it dangerous, is it not dangerous, is it just lose, is there a problem with this animal, which I think has been part of the problem before is there was nothing in between that we could do. You had to go get a court and get a judge to say it was dangerous and maybe you could get the dog and maybe you could hold it. So I think we'll combine that's available under the statute to give us the most flexibility, but there will be standards as to how -- we won't just say, this is really a nasty dog, so we're going to call it a dangerous dog.
>> how do you -- however we anticipate handling this is we would handle it likely do in the city and we have an administrative hearing process. They're not deciding in the field that this animal is declared dangerous. They're allowed to impound the animal, bring it in so we get the immediate public safety situation taken care of and we hold an administrative hearing and have people come in to be able to testify about their animal, etcetera, and then we would declare that dog dangerous if it met the standards. And that's how we do it in the city. So the officers aren't out there individually deciding which dogs they think are dangerous. We have a formal process that we go through.
>> so what's the import of a declaration of dangerous dog? For a certain dog owner?
>> you have to register the dog as a dangerous dog, which is a -- it's a higher registration fee than would be our city registration. And that allows us to keep up with where the dog is. You have to come in every year and reregister the dog so we know where it is. You have to maintain the dog in a secured enclosure, so that does require you to either build a fence or get a kennel that would be appropriate to keep the dog in, and then you have to acquire $100,000 in liability insurance.
>> that's the city's -- that's what the city does?
>> this is what the state would allow.
>> okay. So that's the law right now.
>> under the state, yes, sir.
>> so the 12 dogs that have been declared dangerous dogs in Travis County have to meet these standards now?
>> yes, sir.
>> we also had a situation that we brought when we were talking about what changes might be needed in state law under our legislative item, and we seed we may need to come back with you because of a situation we had with one of the municipal utility districts that the frustration of a dog that you think might meet that standard of dangerous. You have a limited authority to pick them up for purposes of do they have rabies, and this frustration that was being out there in neighborhoods that a dog that had not really completed the judicial process was being potentially returned to their owner. What we've talked about here would eliminate that because the administrative hearings would happen so much sooner than a judicial hearing happens now, and so we wouldn't need a kind of change in state law, basically by typing up our own regulations, we would eliminate that loophole out there of a dog being returned to their owner before they're really having a determination of whether they were dangerous or not.
>> so what triggers a need to determine that a certain dog is dangerous or not?
>> well, we would be looking to be able to look at -- we want want to be able to look at a dog --
>> the dog has to do something?
>> it has to do something. We can't say, it looks like it. It still has to do something, but the language that the state will allow doesn't have to be a vicious, horrible attack. In the current county language, there has to be a really bad attack, a bad situation has to occur. We can look at tendencies towards aggression before someone gets hurt badly. An example would be the dog that was killing other pets. That's a dog that we would like to consider for a dangerous dog designation because of just what ended up happening, it's killing other pets, and it killed -- attacked a pet with a human involved and now we had an attack on the human as well. So that would be an example of a dog that we would want to declare dangerous. It hasn't attacked a human yet, but it is attacking other animals, which is an indication to us that something bad is going to happen to humans if we let that continue.
>> so the dog must -- a dog must do something to call attention to its self.
>> yes, sir.
>> otherwise we woirt care if it's dangerous or not. Dangerous dogs that are kept at home, as long as the owner can deal with them, that's fine.
>> yes, sir. If they're keeping them safely away from everyone else and no event ever occurs, we would never know that dog exists.
>> so if the owner is aware, will the county come out and try to declare my dog dangerous for no at reason at all, the answer is no, your dog has to do something to make us wonder whether it's dangerous or not and generally we look for some action or some aggressive tendency, which I guess would be reflected in action too, right, either against persons or dogs, other animals?
>> yes, sir. Something has to have happened to trigger us to look at the dog. And -- but it would give us some language where it doesn't have to be this horrible event that we're reacting to. It would still -- it would be more proactive, but there still has to be something that has happened to make us have to look at the dog.
>> can you quickly step through the administrative process to which you reference?
>> how we have is structured in the city is there is a hearing officer --
>> you get a complaint.
>> we get a complaint, we get evidence from the complainant, sworn affidavits, etceteras, about what issue they're having with the dog. If the dog is loose, we will pick the dog up. Of course, in the city we have a leash law, so we can pick the dog up anyway. Then we will get a hearing scheduled at a time that the parties can attend and we allow the complaining party to attend and give whatever testimony they want to give regarding the problem with the animal and the pet owner and anybody else they want to have to give testimony and they can provide documentation, written statements, anything else that they want to provide. And then the hearing officer will make a determination based on the facts of the case that he or she has heard. And notify the owner of the decision and notify the complainant of the decision.
>> and who is the hearing officer?
>> the hearing officer is currently being conducted in the city by our health authority. But it could be me.
>> the city council has basically designated somebody?
>> in our city law there is a designated official, so that's who we have doing it. We would rather not have it be a designated official in the language because it does get into problems if that individual is not available in delegation and that sort of thing. So, for example, the when the health authority is not available, I could conduct them in his sted because he would dell indicate it to me when we cannot conduct them.
>> how in an investigation can you be fair to hear? If you conduct the investigation, can you be fair in the hearing?
>> the animal control officers conduct the investigation and then we're having the hearing officer at the assistant director level, my level. So the officer hearing it is not a member of the animal control workforce. So they are removed from the investigation and they're removed from the animal control function. And that does give us a sense of objectivity about it because we don't have the same people deciding as did the investigation.
>> that's another good thing about going to this administrative level here is, using summer as our example of how do we deal with this. Remember, it didn't count against summer when that dog was attacking other animals? This taking it to the administrative process, an attack on another animal counted. The other thing that was troubling about the summer situation was that when the human interfered, I think we're all taken aback last week when we were told -- two weeks ago when we were told, well, if you interfere, that's provoking the dog, and I think all of us just gasped at that one that you're just supposed to allow the feeding frenzy to complete itself before you could step in. Could you speak to on owe i've gotten a couple of e-mails from folks asking about targeting certain breeds. And can you talk about whether this does or does not do that? I mean, I flat out have got people saying, pit bulls just, the breed in and of itself is dangerous and therefore that should be an automatic designation. How does what we're doing balance concerns, but you have to kind of prove that behavior?
>> the proposal that we're talking about talks about individual animals, what is this animal doing? We're not doing anything, not recommending anything that is specific to a breed. I don't think that we should do that. Because there are perfectly well behaved, well trained rottweilers, pier knees, pit bulls, a dog that may be considered to have aggressive tendencies, there are ones that are well trained, well socialized animals. The proposal that we have is talking about animals that are a problem. We're going to leave alone the animals that are not a problem. However, i'd like to see us mention us to get a sterilization program into some of our county neighborhoods because I think that that would help with some of these problems where you do have animals that get born and they weren't planned, they get given to homes that may not be prepared to deal with them. And a breed like a pit bull, they're very strong, they're very, very strong animals. If they do bite you, it's going to cause some damage. So these strong breeds who can really do some damage, they need to be well trained, they need to be dogs that you plan on having so you plan on training them and having a well socialized, well behaved dog. So I think that some sterilization programs would help us with some of those issues because we would have less of these animals that end up casually belonging to somebody or not belonging to anybody, and they're running around. And those are the dogs that people feel more threatened by.
>> and the state law doesn't allow us to key in on the breeds.
>> I think we're certainly moving in the right direction. Although I'm very interested to get comments back from hearing who is here today, plus I think there are probably a number of folks who want to comment on what we've put together, but, I mean, when you start getting more stringent provisions/language in there like on the unprovoked, which will not consider as provocation those acts by a person attempting to protect or rescue their pet, and then the clarification of dangerous dog to include acts or tendencies or propensities for acts towards both pets and people. Those are major steps of what people I think want. Now, we still are faced with if you come out -- if law enforcement comes out or dorinda, you come out from a call being made to you and summer is in the yard, but has obviously left the yard and there's another dog that's been attacked, hopefully what we're going to move towards here is that we will have the ability to take that dog right then and there. And that's not necessarily a judgment call, I would hope, on whoever is there to take charge of that situation because that really I think is one of the things that incensed people the most with regards to, well, they're back on their yard and so we didn't see the act, so given that we've changed the definition, hopefully we will be able to do that. That I think was one of the more important things that people were down asking is that something that we can really depend on that will happen. And if that -- if the dog is returned and the dog is seen back in the front yard before there's even an incident, I would hope that we would then charge -- you can't have that dog -- that dog has already displayed to this neighborhood that it is not safe to be untethered or not fenced in. And if somebody calls again and says, summer is out after two weeks, summer gets picked back up and at that point in time, then there really are issues about how you're going to deal with this animal because in this instance, I think that the owner was basically vacant with regards to taking charge of this animal. So I know that those are some of the things that I'm sure we will have some comments from the neighbors with regards to exactly, you know, how powerful are we going to be with regard to removing that animal and not seeing that animal back in a place where they can leave the yard again.
>> I believe the language that we talked about as the subcommittee met, I believe what we've talked about will get us here so we can deal with those issues. We need to see the exact language that we come up with and make sure it's going to do the job that we need it to do. But I believe that what we've talked about will work for our officers and allow them to be able to resolve that kind of situation.
>> what is the city ordinance -- what does the city ordinance do about nuisance dogs? Is that a problem that exists in the city of Austin? I take nuisance dogs to mean basically dogs that just roam all over the neighborhood and go through a certain neighbor's property.
>> the city doesn't really define nuisance because we have a leash law that says they can't be running loose, so that is a violation. We have another section of the law that deals with barking. Another section of the law that deals with deaf indication and those are the three big issues that people most of the time mean what they say that dog is a nuisance, they usually mean those three things. We have language specific to those three things, so we do not have language that says -- that talks about the general nuisance kind of animal.
>> so the city ordinance says what about barking?
>> it says that you must restrict your animals from barking in a way that's going to disturb a reasonable person. And we do not handle that through animal control, it's handled through the civil courts. So you try to work it out with your neighbor and we assist in doing that, but if it gets to the point where there needs to be an official action taken, it goes through the civil system rather than through the animal control.
>> okay. So if we -- if we require that an owner accept responsibility for keeping its dog on his property, we see residents all the time walking dogs through the neighborhood hope any on public right-of-way, down the street in the park. What restriction would apply to those circumstances?
>> folks walking their dogs off of their property would be required to put them on a leash unless they were in a place where it's legal to have them off leash. Like there's two parks in the county system, and I think we have 11 or 12 in the city system. So you could take your dog to one of those leash-free eashz and let them off leash or you can leave them off a leash while exercising them on your property.
>> in the city ordinance a leash is described as a certain length, right?
>> it's six feet.
>> where did that come from?
>> I don't know.
>> is that a round number?
>> that language has been there a long time. But it is a reasonably -- a short enough leash that you can keep your dog under control and yet still long enough that it can walk with you and that sort of thing. And whether the number is six feet or seven feet, we do care about people using a short enough leash that the animal is not a hazard while it's on a leash, like the leeshz that can extend out, the dog is on a leash, but if the leash is going 20 feet out, they could still bite somebody or trip somebody or jump on somebody or whatever.
>> anything else we need to know from you?
>> direction as to how we want to go and we'll start trying to put language together that we can fine tune that's detailed and be sure that in all cases the county has the authority to do what we're doing. And there may be some things that the city has authority where the county does not. So we have to be sure that ours fits within our authority. So there may be some things where we can't duplicate the city exactly.
>> anything else from the court?
>> how much would registration cost a dog owner? Registration?
>> the city's registration and licensing program is currently five dollars a year for an animal that has been sterilized and $15 a year for an animal that has not been sterilized. With the cost difference being hopefully an incentive to people to sterilize their pets. We require that annually.
>> and when the animal gets sterilized, there's some record of that?
>> yes, sir. There would be a record at the vet. And most pet registration tags are sold through the veterinarians when they get their vaccinations, we do sell them at the shelter and we send renewal notices from the shelter. But the majority of them are sold to the veterinarians. So they will know the status of the animal.
>> and whalz to that o. -- owe what happens to that revenue? That stays with the veterinarian?
>> no. The way we have the city program structured is they collect the revenue for us and send it in to us, and we are letting them keep a dollar for the administrative work that they're doing for reporting it and they send the remainder to us. To the city.
>> what does the city do with the money?
>> in the city the money goes into the general fund.
>> okay. Do we think --
>> the law requires us to use it for the.
>> at the county?
>> yes.
>> but we think we have the authority to want to impose registration?
>> yes.
>> to impose a fee?
>> yes.
>> do we have reason to believe that veterinarians welcome the opportunity to assist with this program?
>> some do and some don't. There are some veterinarians that are very supportive of the program and there are some that are not because they are having to pass on the cost to their clients and their clients may be unhappy with the size of the bill already and having to add our additional amount on sometimes will make the veterinarians unhappy. And some of them don't believe in it for whatever reasons, because it's imposing additional cost on owning a pet, etcetera. What we would do in the county is we will go out and meet with these veterinarians, talk to them individually, get them set up on the program and hopefully help them understand how the program does benefit the animal and hopefully we'll get them to buy in. And they do have a couple of veterinarians that are in the county that voluntarily register pets in the city program because they want their clients' pets to be registered.
>> if we adopt a registration requirement, what happens to dogs who are running loose unregistered?
>> well, it would be a violation, so if they're running loose unregistered, and we wrote a citation to the owner, we would write them a citation for the dog being loose, for the dog being unregistered. If it was unvaccinated, we would write it for that. However, we still do registervations in the field, so if they are unregistered, we can get in contact with the owner and get them in compliance and get their information into the database. The other thing i've recommended that we do with these changes is that we include the county residents in our responsible pet owner class that we do with the city residents. What we do with that is if you're a first time offender on any of the violations, and you get a citation, you can come and take the class, and the class teaches people about the laws, but it also teaches them about other pet responsibilities, like wellness care, sterilization, that sort of thing. And then we waive the ticket, we waive the citation. Like defensive driving. If you come to the class, then we waive the citation and don't send those through. So that's a very positive, educational program to get the first violators understanding what they should be doing. And we hope we're never going to see those folks again because they know what they need to be doing with their pet.
>> and the county has the authority to issue a citation?
>> i'll have to check on that.
>> in the city you can be charged a fine as a result of the citation, I guess, as it goes through the administrative process or a fine of up to how much? What's the fine?
>> up to I think it's 500. It's a class a misdemeanor. The ticket is 500.
>> do you know about what percentage of the pets or dogs are unregistered?
>> i've had some consultants estimate it for me, the consultants i've had estimate it were people that wanted to take over the pet registration program, so that's the reason that they gave me these numbers. I've had them estimate that it's as low as 12 to 15% in the city that are being registered. We don't have an animal census in this community. Some communities do them, but we have not gone out and counted how many animals we think are out there. So having this consultant give me that estimate, there's really no way to tell how many are registered. Not nearly adds many as are out there. However, the pet registration programs, even though you don't get 90% voluntary compliance for those animals that are registered, they are much more likely to go back home because the animal registration means that we get current information about where the pet lives and phone numbers and that sort of thing. So I almost think of it like an insurance program. You pay five dollars a year if your pet is neutered. If your pet gets lost we're more like to get it back to you. We take it back home to you instead of taking it to the shlter if we can reach you. We guarantee its medical care if it needs to go to the emergency room. So the pet gets some real benefits. The owner has to pay five dollars and some people don't like that additional fee being put to them, but the real benefits come to the animal that is registered if they do end up in need of our services. What's in this proposal is if you're going to go out and pick up loose animals, then a law that provides the pet from protection by saying you must be registered is a benefit to those animals that we pick up if more of them are registered.
>> anything else?
>> judge, the only thing I would ask her to speak to are the specific examples that we used in the last discussion, I think the judge offered up a situation where if you get out of your driveway and there are some dogs on your property, how would this change and address that particular scenario? Just as a point of clarification for those that might be listening.
>> what we've proposed to do, if you come home and there's a bunch of dogs in your yard and you don't want them there, you would be able to call us and welcome get them. And they're off of their property, we would be able to take care of that and it would be just that straightforward.
>> the second example had to do with the dog summer where the family was in the driveway, their pet was killed, but when law enforcement arrived, the dog was back on her property. So how would what we do today impact that situation?
>> I believe that the changes that we're talking about would allow us to impound that dog. So we would be able to pick that dog up, get them safely confined so that nobody else is going to get hurt where we were making a determination about whether the dog would be declared dangerous or whatever we needed to do. I think what we're talking about would take care of that situation.
>> you do have a sworn statement that summer had left the property and had done something someplace else. And then went back home. The attack occurred someplace other than where she was supposed to be.
>> that's exactly right. We would have something from somebody that says this dog has been doing this. Even though it ran back home, we would have something that said this is the problem and we would be able to take care of it.
>> that would be all.
>> we do have a few residents who have come down to give comments today if you would come forward. We have five seats available. If you would give us your full name, we would be happy to get your comments?
>> I have e-mailed you several comments in regards to the leash law. For the past 20 years, the dogs have been running in our neighborhood, and my family has been personally affected by this, both of my daughters have been bitten. I was also trying to deal with some kind of situation with my neighbors. They have pit bulls that they show up and the dog's on everybody's property, no leash. And they'll come and attack my cats in my yard. I would like to know when a situation like that arises, do I just call animal control and they take my word for it when they're back on their property and they've attacked my animals or threatened my animals, i'd like to know that. I'd also like to know as far as the traffic is concerned, we have quite a few dogs that dart in front of cars. And my daughter, who was driving through the neighborhood not at a fast speed, locked up her brakes and landed in a tree because the dog had darted in front of her dog. So i'd like to know what we do about that. That's just a couple of questions. The other thing i'd like to know is as far as the nuisance dog barking at all hours of the night and day, i'd like to see maybe something like that addressed in the county because meteorologist ilona torok life is disrupted constantly by dogs parking. That's all I have to say.
>> would you like to address those questions? You live in the city of Austin, now.
>> no, I live in Austin lake estates.
>> okay.
>> and it's not the country any more. [ laughter ] people like to believe it, but they're not in the country any more. Bee Caves at 7:30 in the morning, and you will see that we are not living in the country, that's a myth, a fallacy.
>> I believe the changes that we're making allow us to address the situation you've described,, the dog coming into your property, attacking the animals and then they leave. We would be able to handle those under the dangerous dog law that we're proposing. We would be able to take care of that case. So I think that would work. The traffic situation's, I get a lot of complaints as well about loose dogs being a traffic problem, and I think to solve that problem we need to reduce the number of loose dogs that are out running around. It's the dogs that will get hit. I think the leash law will help us address that. But the barking situation, I'm not sure what the county can do in terms of legislating that.
>> I'm not sure that the county has the authority. The last time I checked, the noise authority that we had, the measure that was in the statute was so loud that a dog just couldn't get there. I don't know. I will double-check and see if any changes have been made. That's been awhile back that I looked at it, but I don't know that the county has the same authority as the city as far as regulating and dealing with noise issues.
>> if you had a homeowner's association, if you had one.
>> they don't address it.
>> if you had those -- if you had a barking ordinance in your homeowner's, would that be something that you could --
>> that would be a private issue between the homeowners and their association that they would have to deal with totally on a private basis.
>> in your opinion from a legal standpoint, would it have grounds if there was something in a homeowner's association regarding barking and somebody wanted to take that to a jp or take it to court or whatever?
>> i'd have to look into it. I will give you an answer.
>> that's clearly is something that has been brought to my attention. I mean, in the particular neighborhood where summer was, I mean, I know a number of neighbors that have issues with the barking dogs, and it is a problem. Because trying to sleep -- and especially with animals when you live out in -- you don't necessarily have to live in the country any more. They have dear and whatever that will will have dogs barking. I think that it is legitimate to try to come up with something we would have to depend on the most is somebody being a good neighbor and taking charge of their animal.
>> what we can do, and we do this in the city because we do have a barking ordinance, is the first thing that we try to do is just go talk to the folks and say do you realize that the animals are causing a problem in the community and see if we can get them to work it out with their neighbors and get some neighbor to neighbor talking and us try to facilitate that. As we look at the picture of where we are, I can make sure that gets included where we're providing that kind of assistance even though there may not be a regulation for us to be working with. We still don't mind talking to people about the animals problems that they may be causing to other people. We could certainly do that.
>> so what happens in the city if there's just a pack of stray dogs? And you get a complaint? Three or four dogs are in my neighborhood, come in my yard, neighbor's yard, we want them taken care of. They violate -- to the extent that they're owned by somebody, and not on the owner's property, and if there's a leash law they would violate that. But what do we do about the stray dogs?
>> we try and catch them. We try to get out there at the time that they're going to be out and catch them. And sometimes that always doesn't work. Sometimes the dogs are real savvy and even get the smell of the trucks and smell the people that are working out there trying to catch them and stay away from them. But we will try to catch them. And what we do in neighborhoods that are experiencing an ongoing problem like that is we'll set up a program just to try to solve that problem. I may have several officers patrolling the neighborhood for a few days until we can track down those animals.
>> okay. So if my dog, if I have a dog and I keep him on my property most of the time, but the dog is fond of chasing cars on the street in front of my home, then that is still a violation of the dog should not be allowed to run loose?
>> yes, sir.
>> ms. White, does that answer your question?
>> pretty much so.
>> yes, sir?
>> hi, my name is jack bishop. I'm a long time citizen of Austin and Travis County. I'd like to start by reading you a message that I had on my answering machine some time last year. It was from carol may, also a long-time citizen of Austin and Travis County. And in it she refers to her dog, log go (indiscernible).
>> jack, there's a bit bull roaming the neighborhood and it just about bit off his ear. And my finger is just kind of hanging there. Anyway, e.m.s. Is on the way. I'm probably going to the hospital. The dog is bleeding. I don't think she's going to bleed to death, but she's bleeding a lot and there's nobody here to take care of her. And so I wonder if when you get this message if you come over, i'll leave the door unlocked and if you could come over and take her to an animal hospital so they can stop the bleeding. That was a bit bull. -- pit bull. This lady, who I never met, mentions pit bulls. Summer, cujo dog from hell, pit bull mix, those five dogs that attacked that little girl on her bicycle, three of them were pit bulls. Now, I took this up with the Austin animal advisory commission, who worked with dorinda, I suggested that pit bull owners be required to carry liability insurance. Pit bulls, pit bull mixes, pit bull type dogs. I mirrored it after a ordinance in cincinnati. After listening to this, the animal advisory commission and dorinda said, no, existing laws are adequate. Now we've had these other attacks. Now, to your credit you recognize the existing laws were not adequate, we're now changing them, but we're still not singling out pit bull. Pit bulls are a breed of dog that have been bread for centuries specifically to fight. There are those who would say, oh, they're not a breed, the american kennel club doesn't recognize them as a breed. Well, the american kennel club does not pass our laws. I hope that as part of what you're proposing you include specific rules about owners of pit bulls. You have a lawyer here. There's a provision in the state law that prohibits you from designating all dogs of a particular breed as dangerous dogs. However, you may be interested in knowing that there's a similar law in florida, and yet miami-dade county has banned pit bulls. I think the loophole there is you don't declare them dangerous, you just pass some laws saying pit bull owners have to do this or that. And so the state law is essentially silent on whether or not you're declaring it a dangerous dog. I would encourage you to -- I would support banning them, but that may be carrying it too far. But I would certainly support or urge you to support requiring every owner of a pit bull, pit bull mix or pit bull type dog to carry liability insurance. The case I read you, the message, the owners of the pit bull, they were renters, they didn't have any money, didn't have any homeowner's insurance, and at my urging carol went to a lawyer to sue them to get back some of her medical expenses and things. And the lawyer looked into it a little bit and said, well, there's really -- there's no point in proceeding with this because you won't get anything. I suggest to you that many pit bull owners in the county are in the same shape. They don't have any insurance if their dog gets loose and injuries somebody. They skate. What really set me off was the homeowners of this pit bull that did this attack several weeks later had another pit bull. That's absurd. I suggest you also make the killing of someone's pet something that a criminal fine can be assessed. If I go out and find the mangled remains of my pet, right now that's considered a property loss. Well, i'd like it to be a fine that the owner has to pay. Perhaps you could take the fine money and throw it in the shelter. Anyway, don't let the fact that the state dangerous law provision does not allow breed specific legislation. I urge you to go ahead and say pit bull owners have to follow some certain rules, even though we're not formally declaring their dogs dangerous. I hope you consider that.
>> I guess legally rather than singling out the pit bull, could there be a category of dogs based on size that we could say up front, not declare them dangerous dogs, but require this specific thing to be done with them?
>> i'll be -- i'll do a little more research on that and I'm not sure how the law is in florida, but one of the distinct things about the law in Texas is that where cities are concerned, unless a law prohibits a city from doing something, unless there's a law that says you can't do it, then the city can do anything.
>> does that apply to the county also?
>> but in the county the law is the opposite. Unless I have a astronaut that says the county can do this, then we can't do it. So what you come down to is we have a law that says you can declare a dog dangerous, and when you do, you can do this and you can do that. I can hook on to that law, the draft county rule. I don't have a law that I know of that says I can regulate dog ownership or animal ownership. I can do things related to rabies control. We can do things related to dangerous dogs. But if there's not a law that says we can do it, then the county can't due it. And that's where we run into some things that if the law doesn't address it, we can't do it.
>> look into it further.
>> but under the proposal, a pit bull or any other dog that commits a certain act or shows an aggressive tendency, and I guess we have language dealing with that, we will have the ability to do a whole lot more than we have today.
>> yes, sir. And that's the difference that we're talking about is in the existing county regulations, something really horrible has to happen before we can did he chair the dog dangerous. In the language we're talking about we would be able to declare a dog dangerous before something horrible happens, it still has to be aggressive tendency, but we can be more proactive in stopping these kinds of things from occurring with what we're talking about in the new proposal.
>> and hopefully something horrible doesn't happen first.
>> that's what got us started on this. I think that's what has changed dorinda's mind before telling us that the laws were adequate. Now you agree that we need to change the laws.
>> we're talking about the county regulations here, which are different from the city regulations.
>> as I understand it, the commission -- it does not apply to county items?
>> the commission has representation from the county on it, but I think that on the night you spoke that there was at least a thinking that they were talking about the city law. And the city laws, there's room for improvement as well.
>> then I would ask you as Commissioners, I'm just a private citizen. I assume that city councilmembers take your calls.
>> depends on the week.
>> okay. But you probably have better luck than one citizen, although I'm going to keep after it. I tried to go through the animal advisory commission, and one of the Commissioners sat there with a straight face telling me that we don't need to do anything about pit bulls. After all, chihuahuas bite people too. Now, I think the is that the representation on that commission is way over on the side of -- we've heard some of it on dor rin da, we'll pick up the little pet and give it to his owner, and very little on all the rest of it, who were settling injuries from pets getting out and I might say once again, pit pulls getting out.
>> I told carol, the lady whose dog was killed and injured, I said i'll try again after we have some nice ugly incident. And i'll say that to y'all and i'll say that again. There will be more ugly incidents, there will be pit bulls. Also one thing I did not mention is there was organized illegal dog fighting and every one of those dogs will be a pit bull. It looks like I'm not going to get any immediate action from the county, but I hope i've put it in your mind.
>> we're thinking real hard. That's what we're doing.
>> and thank you for listening to me.
>> we appreciate that. Appreciate your comments. Are there others here who would like to give comments on this item? Okay. We will need those two chairs. There are three chairs available, so meez come forward. Yes, sir.
>> yes, sir.
>> well, I'm back. Thank you. That man-made more sense than all the other people that have spoken so far here. I wrote a letter to the commission and said that second sentence, what we have is a dangerous dog problem, not a loose dog problem. It appears that the dangerous dog problem is more of a legal interpretation, or it's becoming one, a legal problem than it is a practical problem.
>> can you remind us of your name.
>> jim, 2107 lake shore drive.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...draconian,
>> you curbed that dog out of your yard, still it's a proper vacation in accordance with this, in my interpretation. In fact it says an added distinction of an unprovoked attack which will not consider as provocation those acts by a person attempting to protect or rescue a pet or a child. Well, where does that leave, who is the child? Is it a 15-year-old boy still a child, an 18-year-old girl is not a child? 15-year-old boy can protect themselves better than an 18-year-old girl can. The -- if you are attempting to protect or rescue a pet, this other pet is being elevated, deified to the same level of a child for the level of protection, I think that's wrong and misdirected. What about if you are trying to protect your spouse or someone who is at your house who is an adult. Not very able to protect themselves like the lady that was getting bit on the legs that testified last time, that -- I asked those people later, what kind of a dog was it? Well, it was a black lab, pit bull mix. Like he said, pit bull equals problems. There's other dogs that equal problems. Like dobieer man's and -- rottweilers. Now, a great dane doesn't like other dogs. But it's a great people dog. Where I live there's no leash law, the neighbor dogs come over and sit there and watch me work an then they mooch for a little snack, they are so nice. I don't mind that. Our neighbors don't mind it. But they have them all confined I think -- but to have them all confined I think is falling into the city's perspective that we have just got to control everything. But the reality is that they are not controlling anything that they should control. You go down on the hike and bike trails, there's dogs always jumping up and sniffing at you. Well, he won't hurt you, he just wants to be friends. He just wants to lick me, sniff me, bug me. I just don't want that. So you need a short leash on those. I did call one of the bike shop owners and made a suggestion in accordance with what I discussed last time was when they have these organized rides that they take a helmet cam and then document that and get a quick response and she was one of the owners, of one of the big bike shops. She really took sort of an indifferent idea. That's a good idea. We like no dogs, but that's not reasonable, either. So I would like to look at the response to these things better that this education. In fact if you want to do something about it, put that on a dvd and send it to people, put it on line and they have to watch it. If you can take defensive driving on line, why tie up people down there at this doggy or people behavior class. So -- so I had a couple of other notes here. Now, how do you identify a dog once it's been deemed or caught as a -- as a dangerous dog. Let's say a bad dog. Dangerous just opens up this can of worms about the definition. Well, what about tattoos, ear notching, what about this. We just know the owner, they can go and get a new dog. This guy right here, six weeks later has a new pit bull, I think there's a problem there. I don't like having lots of laws and then letting the -- letting the enforcement people do capricious enforcement because that's somewhat what the cops do. They say, well, he can't go across the street and we'll bust him for something. I don't like that as a matter of law and I think really you need to focus on the problem. And then there's another thing here about dangerous wild animals that has owe apparently the Texas attorney general made an opinion on that. I don't know what that says, but does that include feral dogs, when does a neighborhood dog become a feral dog? Only at night or when he slips his collar? I think the attorney needs to delve into a couple of things. One, the law, two what is this attorney general's opinion about dangerous and wild animals, and three, find us a way to get around either you are a dangerous dog or you are not. Just as criminals, there are people who are a nuisance, people that are more than a nuisance, plain out threats, other ones that need to be locked up forever and given the needle. I made suggestions about a three-step process with dogs that are captured, caught, that are a menace and -- and it's written here in my memo, I just want to ask did each of the Commissioners get a copy of my memo? I sent it to Commissioner Daugherty's office. I'm not sure if it got sent out. Thank you, that's all that I have to say.
>> well, let me -- your position is that we ought to try harder to identify dangerous wild animals.
>> that certainly seemed to be a pivotal issue here, she says you can't do that state-wide. The other man says yes. It all seems to be pivoting on this dangerous dog issue and the definition and practical reality of it. The dogs that you had in your yard, are they dangerous, who knows? Provoke them, bam. A dog that will kill other dogs are a lot different than the ones that start biting on people.
>> hypothetical.
>> yeah, yeah okay. I'm in the more than 15 male category, I like a dog fight every now and then, but --
>> yeah.
>> but so you think -- dogs running loose doesn't pose a problem for you?
>> well, that's a broad statement. Yeah, they do if they are doing menacing actions, but if they're not, if they are not running loose, those dogs are not confined to their yard, they come over and visit me. In fact I welcome the dogs in the neighborhood because we have zero robberies or burglaries there because they act as our own little mcgruff crime dog. If anybody is a stranger there, they start yapping and alerts everybody. And when is a dog barking a noise, warning you of problems, it's a welcome noise. If he's howling at the moon it's annoying.
>> most of the examples that we were given of dogs being attacked came from owners who were walking small dogs or small dogs were at home and the large dog basically attacked it.
>> well, yeah. The reason that you are hearing that is because they are mad because they lost their little dog. The little dog is going to lose in the fight. Watch their body language between those two dogs stand there looking at each other, I don't know. They have their own body talk. But there are lots of people who are out walking their dogs, in fact a guy with a couple of dogs ended up chasing everybody all of the time. The new guy moved in so old sonny was going to go over and strut his stuff, he got his tail kicked. That was the last time he went over there. We're not going to report it. There was no guy that got beat up, the dog who thought he was tough got kicked around. You don't hear about those you see. The ones that you are hearing about, the little dog that got chewed up and dead. And most of the time the dogs get in a scrap, the big dog -- little dog will back down, big dog won't press it. One sided.
>> we talked about the example that you said there. That -- if you have a dog that just wanders on over to your property and you are not bugged by it, then let it be. These things are going to be complaint driven. You are not going to have animal control officers driving around looking for dogs that are not on property and to pick them up. It's going to be driven by complaints. So if these dogs are coming on to your property and it's okay with you, and they are not bugging you, then they are not going to come over there and pick up those dogs. But if for some reason one of those dogs does irritate you or shows aggressive behavior, then you are going to be able to have the ability that we did not have before of being able to say this dog is showing aggressive tendencies and we can get it to an administrative officer. But if a dog is just coming over to your property, you are not bugged by it nor any of your neighbors, this is not going to interfere with that.
>> yes, the. Because that last clause states that it has to be on a leash. Or restrained to the owners property.
>> but it's going to be driven by complaints. Like I said we don't have enough trucks in the world to be cruising streets looking for stray dogs. They are going to concentrate on where they are getting complaints. If you are not bugged by it, they are not going to come down your street, looking for dogs. Simply being out. But if somebody complains about that, then they wouldn't wind up in your neighborhood.
>> I agree. But that language then should be put in there. That it's a complaint driven response. Otherwise it goes back to the capriciousness, don't have enough truck, we need higher registration fees. That is the intent of this group, then let's put it in the language. Okay.
>> thank you very much. Yes?
>> yes. My name is Margaret ziger, I live out in del valle. -- we can't even walk down the street to talk a walk because there's so many dogs. My mother can't walk to her mailbox. I have been -- I garden out in the yard have had like -- if you are calling three dogs a pack of dogs, i've had more than a pack of dogs come through my yard on a regular basis. You can come to my house and every morning there's a pack of dogs that come through my yard. And I'm assuming that the people are letting the dogs out because they think nobody is home. You know later on the morning. But I am. I do stuff outside. It's pretty bad when you can't walk down your own street because there's dogs, you know, one -- one was chasing my mother down her driveway, she can't check her mailbox at all. She's scared to death of the dogs across the street. But there's dogs everywhere and in our area alone, there are young kids that are raiding pit bulls as pets and they are terrorizing everybody else. A few years ago, when -- when we had a swimming pool for the kids, it was a fairly nice sized swimming pool, we woke up one morning and had a pit bull in it. And in our swimming pool. Those dogs were roaming around obviously that night and I'm assuming by the pool and one of them got -- he got pushed in. When you have that many dogs out in the country and people get dogs because they are -- they are supposed to take care of their property, you know, watch their house and all that stuff. But a lot of people don't realize that those dogs leave their property and go somewhere else. We've had -- we've had cats killed, we've had chickens killed. Everything that you can imagine out there. We've had problems with. When we did have problems and especially when the mailbox thing, I kind of got fed up with it. It took me forever to figure out who I was supposed to call. And -- and figure out who was supposed to come out there and fix this problem. Because I got sent to -- to different places. So the education part of this new program that we are going to have is going to have to be a really good education. It can't be something that you just do and everybody is supposed to know how it's done. Because people are out there having problems and don't know who to contact to fix the problem. When we called someone and finallyot the information on what we needed to do, the poor guy come out and told me that there's two guys that take care of the whole Travis County area outside of the Austin city limits. I'm like this boggles my mind. And then I asked for information on how many, you know, bites we've had in Travis County. How many dogs get turned in from Travis County. This -- this stuff is amazing. And nothing has ever been done about this. Until one little girl gets practically eaten up by a dog. And yet you won't -- you know you are kind of worried about doing something about the pit bull. Well, come out to my neighborhood and walk down the street.
>> my name is kathy olive, I'm actually the Travis County representative to the Austin animal commission. First and foremost, I'm urging you to please pass this law. This morning as I drove in from elroy, I passed three feral dogs on elroy road. I know they are feral because I see them every day. They belong to nobody. I have seen these dogs eating the body of a dead dog on the side of the road because they have nothing to eat. I don't know whether they are dangerous or not, they are just feral. And as the law stands right now, they can't be picked up. If they were inside the city limits of Austin, animal control would pick them up. But again as the law stands right now, there's nobody to pick them up. Unless I were to say I think they are rabid, then rabies control would come get them, but I don't know if they are rabid and I don't know if they are dangerous, they are just starving to death. We need this law. We need this law. All I have to say is please pass it.
>> thank you very much.
>> my name is germane swenson. I am for county-wide leash law, one that is similar to the city leash law. I live near manor and i've had neighbors that have had trouble with dogs running loose and threatening them when they go to get their mail at their mailbox. So I think that it's a prudent law. I've also done a little research on dog attacks. Now, of course, I did this over the internet, so I'm not sure if these stats are correct, but nationwide the dog that caused -- causes the most attacks to humans is the labrador retriever. But that may be because it's the most common breed in america. Now, as far as pit bull attacks, they are not the dog that attacks the most. But because of their jaw pressure, and their ability to -- they have the ability to do more damage when they do attack. Versus other dogs. I personally am not for singling out any one breed. Because I just don't think that's fair. I have recently acquired a pit bull lab cross, and I have a duck, I have cats, on my 80-acre farm and he's very gentle. He's never shown any aggression towards my smaller animals. And I have trained him and disciplined him. I never needed to train him not to be aggressive towards my other animals, but I believe in discipline and proper training of animals. I do keep -- contain my animals on my property and that's another reason why I'm for a county-wide licensing. I think it will help people decide whether they want to -- to pay a fee to keep animals because part of being a responsible pet owner I think is veterinary care, licensing, the shots and if it costs money, it costs money to feed them, and if it costs extra money to keep them licensed, that's showing responsible pet ownership. And I look forward to the day where there's never an unwanted animal. Where there's never a stray animal. I rescue at least two dogs a year. I live out in the country. People dump dogs on my road. I take care of at least two a year, relocate, find them homes or take them to the pound. I think it's very inhumane for anyone to think that dumping a dog on a road is a way of solving their problem of unwanted dogs. I think it would be better to euthanize them because of what they suffer being dumped either torn up by coyotes, hit by cars, dying of starvation, fire ants, it's so sad what I have seen. And I think that the -- I would almost like to see a law passed that anyone who is not a breeder have their pet spayed or neutered. Why not? You know, I could go as far as that. Maybe instituting a law like that. I have thought long and hard about this. I thought that might be a good solution. Spaying or u.n. Security counciling for anyone and everyone -- spaying or neutering for anyone and everyone who is not a professional breeder and maybe having some kind of licensing for breeders. To make sure has their facilities are proper, that they are really being responsible and, you know, anyway that's all that I have to say.
>> so how do you manage to keep your dog on your property?
>> I have a good fence.
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> so marietta, when you say registration and licensing, you mean the same thing?
>> the law says register. So we would probably call it a registration. Anybody else? We do have the committee still intact. And we have specific recommendations from the committee. Which all sound reasonable to me. In the end we will try to balance the right of pet owners to enjoy their pets against the right of the public to be protected. And I think that -- that we need clarifying language that covers walking your dog in the public right-of-way. And I'm visualizing or sort of recalling testimony that we received here and in a lot of instances it seems that the owners were walking dogs on public streets.
>> the other thing is that I think that all pet owners specific standards that we would consider to determine whether or not a certain dog is dangerous. Now, the dangerous wild animals ordinance is a little different than what we are considering. Now, does this impact that ordinance in any way?
>> what the -- what the court will need to look at is the dangerous wild animal is -- there's a listing under the statute of several animals, tigers, that sort of a thing. That the county either prohibits or registers. And right now, we have a -- we have a provision in our animal control chapter, which covers all of these things. Rabies, registration, leash, all of that is going to be under this same chapter and the court will need to look at that, the current provision and look at the law and look at the a.g. Opinion that's come out. We've had to brief the court in executive session on this and see if we want to keep what we have, if we want to make a which I think in what we have. It's -- if we want to make a change in what we have. It's under the current policy, the court's action on that particular part of the statute, we'll need to address it. But whether we address it the same way that we have it now or make a change in that, it's something that the court will need to decide. Again I will be happy to brief you on that in executive session.
>> okay. In an e-mail that I sent several interested residents a couple of weeks back, I indicated that we would have a public hearing next Tuesday. Seems to me that their attempt would be better spent trying to -- seems to me that their talent would be better spent trying to come up with specific draft language that the court will consider adopting. That we try to give interested residents a little more than the holiday weekend to review that and for some reason or another I was not recalling that yesterday was a holiday when when --
>> I think to emphasize the summary that went out was sample language, it was certainly not the final language that we were going to use, there were samples, examples, summaries, but this is not at all the language that is going to be there. I think this will be cleared up with you see the language, the questions and more specific details. These were just to give you an idea of here's our approach, here's what we think we should do is to look at the definition of provocation, look at the definition of dangerous dog and come up with some better things that will give us more enforcement capability and so this was not to be considered actual language. That's what we need, I would think, a couple of weeks to -- to come up with.
>> I know, judge, we were sensitive to the fact of rather than marietta sitting down and having draft language, we wanted to bring back, the committee wanted to bring back to the commissions court to kind of get a gut check, reality check, get some initial feedback so that we could see are we going in the right direction because if somebody all of a sudden said no, I don't want to do that, then we didn't want to waste a lot of time putting language down if it was not something that the other members of the Commissioners court were interested in pursuing. So I think it would be helpful if it's just a nodding of the head or an actual motion to basically give some kind of direction to the committee that we are headed in the right direction and that we should move to formalize what we have talked about in specific language that can be then presented to everybody for --
>> I think we ought to take a formal motion in just a few minutes, here.
>> that would be great, judge.
>> I think to the extent of administrative procedure will be implemented, I think that ought to be described generally in the origins and on the registration, slash licensing, think we ought to address that. Somebody needs to I guess informally contact veterinarians and see if we should count on their support. Fits complaint driven, we ought to give some consideration of what kind of language we use to communicate that to the public. And there were other comments given today that I think we ought to at least consider, try to address, either incorporate or leave out but I think that ought to be done consciously. And I mean I think we are headed in the right direction, though. I don't see us really backing off. It does seem to me that -- that -- I mean it's sort of difficult to understand that -- that the law was sort of human focused up to this point and that animals were not considered. I mean, I'm not saying they are one in the same but I'm -- I would think that animals deserve some consideration.
>> well, as we have mentioned today, the behavior towards an animal make likely lead to eventual -- there is some law there that we can use that does address animals that attack other animals and stuff. I think that we may also need to look at and discussion amending our animal control interlocal with the city and that will look at some internal things that we need to address that will implement this successfully once we get the new language in there.
>> is there a part of the two-page set of recommendations that we received from the committee that we should not agree to incorporate in the next draft of an ordinance?
>> no. I think it's pretty -- it includes all of the issues that I think have been brought to our attention plus I think it's very common sensical and -- in addressing that only the -- not only the safety of the animals and taking responsibility for them, but ensuring the safety of children and family who's have chosen to move outside of the city of Austin. There is a lot more liberty but, you know, if we are going to give everybody liberty I think we are going to have to take responsibility for our animals and it's -- it's kind of a bad deal for the animals that are not taken care of and i've been with the county some 30 years, we have always heard about -- about people dropping off puppies that they don't want. Outside -- out in the county. That's not fair to them. That's not very -- that's just not humane toward those animals, either. And so I like -- I mean sterilization is going to have to be part of it because of that reason. So if we can do that in a way that -- that addresses even the -- a way to prevent the feral animals, then, you know, I think we ought to look at everything. I like it.
>> judge, I don't think there's anything in the two pages that anybody would find -- that the -- in contrast to what may be necessitated here is stronger language and I think that that's -- we probably will get, you know, some of those comments. I mean, take away the ambiguity about what you can really do to an animal. And, you know, I -- hey, I'm fine with listening about all of the other things from the sterilization for -- especially the education, but what I'm after is being able to take charge of an animal or animals that are -- that frighten people. Mine, there should be no reason -- I mean there should be no reason why somebody can't go to their mailbox, why they can't walk down their street.
>> right.
>> as a community, we need to take charge of that thing. That is common sense. I mean, I'm fully in favor of people owning pets. But I am absolutely in favor of people taking control of their pets. If they can't take control of their pets, then we ought to. And that's something -- that's the message that we ought to send, you know, loud and clear and so I think that we are going to get there. I mean, but and marietta thanks for doing a good job and sort of, you know, the most difficult thing about this is to recognize that there are just a lot of loopholes y'all. I mean all of you that come down here, I mean, we all know because why? Because we are always trying to be contract of everybody having different opinions. About what needs to happen. There are -- you know, there are those owners that will tell you that their pit bull would not do anything but lick you.
>> yeah.
>> or your dog. Well, we know that there are plenty that will absolutely cause you and anything that you own a lot of damage. And unfortunately, I mean,, you know, again we are dealing with the one or two percent of incidences that makes it all -- always so difficult for us as elected officials to say how do we do it. I would love to be able to wave the magic wand and say, you know, what? This animal is absolutely inherently dangerous. My brother-in-law is an animal surgeon. I talked to him over the christmas holidays and asked him, andy, is a pit bull, does a pit bull have more propensity to be dangerous than another animal? And here's a guy that is highly educated and could not really give me the answer that a lot of people would like. Yes, they are so therefore we ought to extinguish the earth from pit bulls. That's probably not something that's going to happen. I'm always careful to take on a fight y'all where what we are trying to get accomplished we can't get it done because maybe we are stepping beyond the bound that we are going to get a lot of resistance. If we go to the legislature, there are going to be all sorts of stories about why people live in the country. About why people own a dog that, yes, potentially can be dangerous. But they have all sorts of reasons as to why they have animals like that. I will tell you that I am very much in favor of doing whatever it takes from the Commissioners court to put some sensibility into this thing and to allow you to leave your property if you have to, to go to your mailbox, to do the things that all of us need and should be able to do as americans and we have man menacing animals, I'm for taking care of those animals whichever way is the way to take care of them.
>> the bad news is there is additional work for the committee. The good news is that the holidays are behind us.
>> is it okay for a motion.
>> the question is what schedule would we be on? Little -- what schedule, how much time do we need to come up with a good, comprehensive draft?
>> two weeks or three weeks?
>> that addresses and incorporates?
>> we might do it in two weeks. Three weeks I'm sure.
>> three weeks.
>> let's give three.
>> we need to circulate. Give ourselves a week to circulate it and --
>> earlier that you need to maybe revisit the interlocal between Travis County and the city of Austin.
>> I think particularly once we know what our rules are going to be, then we'll need to look and see if there's changes needed or if there's staffing changes or funding changes, those won't be part of our order.
>> right.
>> they will be necessary if we are going to enforce the order -- [multiple voices]
>> my question is the city of Austin being only one municipality within Travis County. What about the other municipalities that are in Travis County that may be looking at us and seeing if their -- if their ordinance, that they have as far as leash laws, things like that, something they can also bridge with Travis County? I don't really know if there are other cities in Travis County that even have -- I really don't know. But often it's -- [multiple voices]
>> I believe that at least with rabies enforcement, the county can enforce its order in any municipality that doesn't have rabies control. Leash, other things, it would have to be that that municipality had an interlocal with us. I don't know that we can go into another municipality and enforce our rules on leash control.
>> so if they do not have -- I guess that's my concern. Since we can't go into the jurisdiction of a municipality. My question is what municipalities other than the city of Austin actually do have the kind of ordinance making -- the ordinances on book presently. Right now we don't know that. We are looking at the city of Austin, but in Travis County may need to be a part of this or come up with some type of --
>> they would have to voluntarily do that.
>> that's their --
>> we could do some information gathering.
>> exactly.
>> thank you.
>> so if we aim to -- for the committee to have a draft, available for review in two weeks, and back on the court's agenda in three weeks, we would have it back on February 8th. And y'all would be able to work enthusiastically while these comments are fresh in mind. Right?
>> uh-huh. Judge, if we can add to that motion is that --
>> that wasn't the motion.
>> I was going to say in terms of that that be incorporated into the committee move with the endorsement of this board that we are headed in the correct direction, we lock down language with the draft to be out by February 1st with action by the Commissioners court, on the 8th, but it would be helpful to have endorsement if this is the correct direction.
>> I know if we appeal an existing ordinance as recommended, various notice requirements kick in. So we need to find out exactly what they are on February 8th. I do think that we need a public hearing. February 8th, though, if we can act on the specific draft language.
>> draft language, yes, sir.
>> if we take up a hearing in a later action, this is democracy at work y'all. A lot of this is required. Good policy, anyway.
>> I think that's something. Again we are dealing with four or five parts of two chapters in the code. I don't know if they will require hearings. This court has always had a policy, there may be changes after that discussion, then schedule a public hearing for final adoption of the rules.
>> the judge has good suggestions there about the specificity that we needed on specific kinds of things such as the administrative hearing portion of this, the registration hearing, I think also good suggestions from the audience represented to what can we do under Texas law. And judge, if I can just add in as part of the motion of this sincere thanks to pull yam and david lurie, yeoman's service, wonderful, cooperative, collaborative, that's -- thank you.
>> motion.
>> that was part of the motion in terms of first the 8th --
>> you get the motion? You are much better than I am. Seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:11 AM

January 18, 2005 Item 28

January 18, 2005
Item 28