NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — As cities like San Antonio grapple with issues surrounding dangerous and aggressive dogs, New Braunfels is contemplating significant changes to its ordinance on the matter.
Christopher Looney, the city’s Planning and Development Services Director, said, “New Braunfels is always in a position of continuous improvement and updating our ordinances…so this is one of those opportunities.”
Looney explained that the proposed changes to the city’s “dangerous dog ordinance” are minor but could have a substantial impact.
“Presently, we have one category of dogs that misbehave, if you will, and it’s just called vicious dog…The proposal is to take that one category ‘vicious dog’. Break it into two so two tiers, dangerous dog and aggressive dog,” he said.
If approved, this would mark the first amendment to the city’s ordinance on dangerous dogs since its inception in 1961.
Looney elaborated, “If there is a situation of a dog having been deemed aggressive, which is the lighter of the two tiers, they would also need to sufficiently enclose them and register them, but it is a shorter window, a period of classification. If the year goes by and there’s been no other complaints or concerns, then that can be lifted.”
The city aims to establish a new framework for categorizing dog threats and incidents, with “dangerous” being the more severe designation.
Looney noted, “If someone doesn’t own a pet, but a neighbor does, and there’s an incident, it creates a fairer process, one that is more predictable for our residents as well…and we know that our residents appreciate that consistency and that predictability.”
There is currently no timeline for when these ordinance changes might be approved.
Looney added, “We try to be consistent where it makes sense, while at the same time addressing local needs where appropriate.”
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