The Angelina County Sheriff’s Office is urging citizens to be more responsible pet owners — as well as hoping to educate the community on what the department can and can’t do in regard to animal calls — in an effort to better focus law enforcement resources on more serious crimes.
Some confusion seems to stem from the fact that while the city of Lufkin has a leash law, there is no such ordinance in the county. And while the county does have a dangerous dog ordinance on the books, the department continues to field numerous complaints about loose pets.
Due to these legal limitations, the best solution for many of the complaints the county receives is for dog owners to be more respectful of their neighbors by preventing their animals from running loose.
“Because here’s the thing,” Sheriff Tom Selman said. “We have a lot of people that think we should do XYZ to fix the dog problem. But the rural area of the county is not like being inside the city. The county does not have the ability to regulate animals on the same scale that the city does.”
Many county residents believe the sheriff’s office is responsible for picking up stray animals and can “do all this stuff to try to mitigate the loose dog problem,” Selman said, “but we’re not authorized by law to do that.”
The county’s dangerous dog ordinance gives the sheriff’s office the authority to deal with situations involving certain canines.
“(It) gives the sheriff’s office, the animal control officer, the ability to declare a dangerous dog when we’ve got one that is biting people or attacking people, charging people — that is creating havoc out there, chasing the chickens and other small animals and whatnot, killing the neighbor’s dogs,” Selman said. “So we’re real limited in what we can do.”
The Safe Outdoor Dogs Act
The Safe Outdoor Dogs Act applies to all citizens of Angelina County and its cities as it is a statewide ordinance that went into effect in January 2022. It defines adequate shelter to protect dogs from extreme temperatures, standing water and inclement weather and provides restrictions — as well as some exceptions — for the tethering of unattended dogs to keep the animals and people around them safe.
In addition to reporting loose dogs, county residents also routinely express concerns to the sheriff’s office when they see animals tied up with short leashes or heavy chains, Selman said — an issue officers are authorized to deal with but one they could perhaps be involved with less frequently if both offenders and those reporting the incidents better understood what is and isn’t allowed under the law.
Animal control
Animal Control Officer Chad Harris has worked for the county for almost a year after previously working for the city of Lufkin for close to a decade, and Selman said he’s proud of his efforts.
“He’s very good. I found him to be probably one of the best hires we’ve made since we’ve been here because he knows about filing court cases, he knows about drawing up seizure papers when we need to seize the dog and go into court and whatnot.”
Harris fields and responds to the animal complaint calls the sheriff’s office receives, confronting, talking to and interviewing the involved parties.
“He gets the scoop and figures out what’s going on, and then he will let a complainant know what we can and what we can’t do,” Selman said. “And then if there is a person who’s like the perpetrator, or the owner of the dog, he tries to work with them to get them to comply with the laws. He works with them to try to get them to — hey, do the right thing. Be a good neighbor, you know? If you’re doing something that affects somebody else adversely, would you please consider another course of action? So that’s what he does. He’s out here trying to make peace with people over these animals, and he’s trying to investigate the ones that rip somebody’s leg off.”
There are some residents in the county — including in Harris’ own neighborhood — who will walk their dogs, but there are some who just open the door “and they’ll take off running,” Harris said.
If county commissioners were to enact a leash law similar to the one Lufkin has, the sheriff’s office could penalize offenders through citations, Harris said.
“We just have to be more strict than what the state law is — we can’t be less strict,” he added.
The only two state-mandated laws currently in effect are the Safe Outdoors Dog Act and one that mandates rabies vaccines.
Harris said more county laws in addition to the dangerous dog ordinance would “probably be beneficial.”
“I can’t say that it would help, but it would certainly make it a little easier trying to crack down on what needs to be taken care of.”
The county’s dangerous dog ordinance
In 1999, the commissioners’ court enacted the ordinance regulating dangerous dogs within the county.
The law defines a dangerous dog as
■ Any dog which, when unprovoked, causes bodily injury, charges or approaches a person upon streets, roadways, sidewalks or any public or private property in an apparent attitude of attack such that the dog will cause physical injury to that person; or
■ Any individual dog with a known propensity, tendency or disposition to attack unprovoked, to cause injury or to otherwise threaten the safety of persons or domestic animals.
Harris recently investigated an incident in which a dog “got loose and caused about 30 to 40 stitches in somebody’s leg. And we’re doing what we have to do to deem that dog dangerous.”
“Once we file a dangerous dog, it goes to court and the judge will make a decision,” Harris said. “Both sides will present their evidence, and the judge will make a decision on if that dog is dangerous, and it’s probably going to hurt somebody in the future, or no, it’s not.
Requirements under the ordinance for owners of dogs deemed dangerous include:
■ Registering the dog with the animal control authority.
■ Restraining the dog at all times on a leash in the immediate control of a person or in a secure enclosure that meets the standards of the animal control authority.
■ Having the dog neutered or spayed.
■ Maintaining a $100,000 home owner’s insurance policy to cover damages resulting from a potential attack by the dog causing bodily injury to a person.
■ Ensuring the dog wears the required dangerous dog collar with a registration tag and current rabies tag.
■ Paying an annual fee of $100.
The annual registration ensures the sheriff’s office knows where the dog is at all times, further verified by checks performed at those properties, Harris said. Additionally, if the dog ever leaves an owner’s care or if an owner decides to get rid of it, “they just have to let us know what they’re doing and where it’s going.”
An owner of a dog deemed dangerous that makes an unprovoked attack on a person or other domestic animal outside the dog’s enclosure that causes bodily injury will be charged with a Class C misdemeanor, while an attack that causes serious bodily injury or death makes the offense a Class A misdemeanor. Anyone found guilty of those charges is subject to the possibility of a court ordering that the dog be destroyed and faces a civil penalty of up to $10,000.
In addition to all the hoops an owner must jump through in order to own a dangerous dog, Selman points out the additional expenses that can stem from liabilities.
“One thing that you’ll notice in that dangerous dog ordinance is that a person who has a dog that bites somebody, they are liable and they can be sued and have doctor bills and all this kind of stuff. What if the person contracted rabies from a dog bite? There’s a lot of ramifications to not properly securing or restraining your dog if he’s prone to chasing kids, animals, people and biting.”
Another legal limitation in the county applies to barking. Noises that create a nuisance would fall under disorderly conduct, Selman said, “and that would probably not apply out in the county because it’s a person that is generating the noise and whatnot.”
“Now in the city, they have dog barking ordinances because they have the power to regulate barking dogs, but there’s nothing in the law that says the county can regulate a barking dog, a crowing rooster, a mooing cow or anything like that.”
Properly reporting abuse and neglect
Selman expressed frustration over the escalation of incidents in which citizens take to social media to share photos and posts of animals they believe are being neglected or abused without ever reporting it to the sheriff’s office so they can be aware of it and investigate.
“People raise hell on Facebook about dogs and the seeming lack of response from law enforcement in dealing with all these dog issues that they see,” he said.
But the sheriff wants to assure citizens that “there is no lack of response.”
“When people call in up here, it is documented. When somebody drives by on Facebook and takes a picture of a skinny dog and says, ‘Look here, we got a skinny dog tied up and nobody’s doing anything about it.’ Well, hell, we don’t know. If they’ve called in about it, we are going to check on the dog and make sure that it’s taken care of. But we we don’t operate through Facebook reports, and people have to call in and make a report, and we follow up on every one of them.”
Selman said Harris answered approximately 141 calls in February for a wide range of animal issues.
“We don’t shove anything under the rug. He goes from daylight ’til dark every day chasing these animal calls, and he’s good. He follows up, he knows what he’s doing. We’ve got the best animal control guy in the county, and he is very proactive, he is engaging and he’s courteous to people. He’s a gentleman about going about his business.”
It can be a tricky job to navigate, according to Selman, as the limitations to what Harris can do legally often frustrate some animal lovers and activists. Nonetheless, “people have property rights, and animals belong to people, and we can’t run roughshod over people if they’re not violating the law.”
“We have to work with them and educate them and try to get them to do what’s right, and to be a good neighbor and to be a responsible pet owner. And that’s the main problem. We have so many irresponsible pet owners that want to keep these dogs tied up. They don’t give them room to play and room to run, and then the ones that do don’t have any checks and balances on them. And so it’s just such a wide range of issues. We just want people to be more responsible in their behaviors so they’re not interfering with their neighbor’s right to peace, and quiet, and enjoyment of life, and pursuit of happiness — all that kind of stuff.”
The right to protect your property
The sheriff’s office fields calls from citizens who are sometimes so fed up with a neighbor’s loose dog that they’re willing to take matters into their own hands.
“People get really pissed off about these dog problems, and they call up here. ‘Can I shoot this dog? He’s in my chickens,’” Selman said. “Well, if the dog is destroying property, chasing chickens and all that stuff, there are provisions where people can protect their property. So that’s just kind of where we are is if it’s a major problem, and you have to protect your property, people have a right to protect their property. We don’t want anyone shooting anybody’s dog — don’t get me wrong.”
While Selman said the sheriff’s office wants all problems resolved amicably and peacefully, he acknowledges the fact that some who have approached their neighbors about an issue to no avail will put a stop to the problem themselves.
“In some cases, people are left with no other option than to take care of the problem because they’ve gone to the dog owners and said, ‘Hey, your dog’s in my chickens. Would you please do something with him?’ And then they don’t do something with him, and he gets in the chickens again, and then it gets load of buckshot, and he’s never to be seen or heard from again. And that’s reality. That’s the real world. And so we’d like to use our words here as a mechanism to encourage people to be a better, more responsible pet owner and to be more cognizant of everybody else’s right to be free from animals, if they so choose, and to control your animal, restrain your animal. Don’t let it affect other people and make your neighbor mad at you.”
A better use of resources
The sheriff’s office is “refereeing fights” between neighbors on a daily basis, which takes up time and resources the department could be using to respond to more serious issues, Selman said.
“If we could just minimize some of these animal issues, then people would get along a whole lot better out there in the world, and it would require less focus of law enforcement on what can be a seemingly frivolous matter to some, but it becomes a serious matter to us when there’s a potential for someone to get hurt, for there to be a disturbance, an assault, people taking the law into their own hands — that kind of thing.
The department has a finite amount of resources it must use as efficiently as possible, “and having to send officers out on dog calls and all this nonsense detracts from our ability to work on the real serious issues — and I’m not saying a dog tearing up your yard or your pet or your garbage is not a serious issue to that person — but more criminal law enforcement type issues.”
One bright spot in all the county’s animal issues is the number of rescue groups and other operations staffed by people “who have this deep love and affection in their heart for these animals,” Selman said.
“They take on these strays and these mutts that are not tended to properly. Those people have a true love in their heart for the animals, and they’re doing a great job, and they really need more resources, as well.”
Selman tips his hat to those organizations for their role in preventing as many animals as possible from being taken to a shelter and possibly euthanized. He also urges citizens to support the local organization of their choice through donations.
