SAN ANTONIO – Are more dogs biting in San Antonio, or is the city just hearing more barking about them?
Animal Care Services officials think greater awareness has, at least in part, led to a bump in confirmed bite cases and a two-fold increase in the number of dangerous or aggressive dog affidavits.
ACS Director Jon Gary also points to his department having more officers in the field responding to more and more calls. In fiscal year 2025, which ended in September, ACS said its officers responded to 87% of critical calls compared to 62% the year before.
Over the past four months alone, the response rate has been above 90%, according to the department.
“Some of those numbers are going the wrong way for us. You know, we don’t want to see more dangerous dogs, we don’t see more bites,” Gary said. “However, I think it’s great that our community is now engaging with us, ensuring that we know about it. They’re reporting it, and our officers are responding. And I think that makes it a successful year.”
“I think next year, I hope that being able to respond to more and being more proactive as we’ve been this past year, we’ll start to see a decline,” he said.
Public focus on dog attacks in San Antonio ramped up after the fatal mauling of Ramon Najera, 81, in February 2023, along with other deadly attacks. The city began a three-year hiring push that same year. And in December 2024, the city council approved harsher penalties for irresponsible dog owners.
ACS has also looked at how it could encourage people to file dangerous or aggressive dog affidavits — the sworn complaints that prompt ACS investigations into attacks or threatening behavior.
Depending what investigators find, it can mean muzzle use, enclosure requirements and heavy insurance coverage. They may also decide the dog doesn’t meet the criteria for being labeled “dangerous” or “aggressive.”
If an owner surrenders a “dangerous” dog to ACS, it’s always put down, but what happens to surrendered “aggressive” dogs depends on the circumstances, a spokeswoman previously told KSAT.
The city’s online registry currently lists 217 dangerous dogs and another 85 aggressive dogs.
Almost 600 affidavits were filed in FY 2025, about double what was filed the year before. But Gary doesn’t think that means there’s more of the dogs out there; he thinks the higher ACS response to calls and more awareness has led to more reporting.
“We’ll go out and someone will actually say to us, ‘You know, this happened before, but we didn’t report it,’” he said.
The department also began allowing people in late 2024 to file their initial affidavit under a pseudonym — though they’d have to use their real name if the owner appealed the designation in court.
However, only three people in FY 2025 and another two this year have used the pseudonym option so far.
The number of confirmed bite cases also jumped from 3,496 in FY 2024 to 3,882 cases in FY 2025 — an 11% increase.
The definition of a “bite” includes any break in the skin, including scratches, as well as “exposure” to high-risk rabies vector species like skunks or bats.
Though Gary pointed again to increased awareness and better ACS response to calls, he said it was “hard to know” whether the increase in bites was an actual bump or just more people reporting them.
"I think it’s a good thing that ... people are now reporting it so that we can ensure the animals are getting their proper quarantine, and that the animals are being vaccinated and all the things that come along when a bite takes place,” he said.
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