WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Wichita Falls Animal Services is announcing an ordinance related to dogs being quarantined.

Nicki Bacon from Animal Services sat down with Carney Porter to talk about what the ordinance means for pet owners.

[00:00:00] Carney Porter: Well, Nicki Bacon with the City of Wichita Falls Animal Services is joining us now to talk about another ordinance that is very important that pet owners should be aware of. Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:00:08][8.9]

Nicki Bacon: You’re very welcome. So this month kind of coincides with last month where we were talking about rabies. And this one is more focused on refusal to quarantine your animal after it has bitten or scratched somebody. And a lot of people don’t understand that, even though their animal’s up to date on their rabies vaccination, Texas state law still requires your animal to be quarantined.

We have to observe them for the 240 hours from the time the bite happened to make sure that they’re not showing any signs or symptoms of rabies. There’s no change in their eating habits, no change in how they’re acting and stuff like that. So quarantine is the reason why we we have to have them at our shelter or your veterinarian.

And it’s really important because once there’s an onset of symptoms, it’s 99% fatal. And we want to make sure that the human that may have been exposed doesn’t have to go through having symptoms and that outcome. And our observation helps with that. And it also helps to not have somebody get unnecessary post-exposure prophylactics against rabies.

So it’s really, really important that you make sure that you do comply with state and local ordinance for quarantining. If not, there could be consequences such as citations. Or we could, if it’s extreme enough and we know it’s been exposed to a rabid animal, we would have to get a search warrant to get that animal and seize it.

Carney Porter: Gotcha. And if that person wanted to sue the person who was bitten and they were, you know, experiencing certain issues, it might be, you know, an illegal, you know, issue between them. So it can be more than just the City. So something to also be aware of.

So we have all of that info over on our website if you’d like to learn more about this ordinance and how to comply with all of those regulations. Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it. Thank you. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.