There’s a new top dog coming to San Francisco’s canine court.
After what will likely end up being a year-long hiatus, so-called Vicious and Dangerous Dog hearings will return to San Francisco with a dedicated hearing officer, the city’s public safety chief Steven Betz said at a Board of Supervisors committee hearing Thursday.
The announcement comes three months after Mission Local reported a rise in dog-bite incidents across San Francisco, alongside a backlog of cases. More than a quarter of the dog bites reported to the San Francisco Police Department, Captain Matt Sullivan said at that time, took place in the Tenderloin.
Dog court, as it’s known, was functionally discontinued by the Department of Police Accountability in July 2025, with no hearing officer to oversee cases and a growing backlog of dog-bite reports.
That backlog currently stands at 66 pending cases before the court, and 15 more under review by the SFPD, which maintains its own vicious and dangerous dog unit.
The suspension of dog court has left many bite victims to fend for themselves. Mission Local spoke to former RV residents in March, who said they were left to advocate, on their own, for some measure of accountability for the dogs that had mauled them.
And in neighborhoods with large homeless populations like the Tenderloin, where dogs are popular companions and guards, bites often go unreported.
“The homeless credo is if you get bitten, you don’t say anything, or you’re a rat,” a former RV resident, Aaron Wilson, told Mission Local in March.
The Department of Police Accountability, which has held the hearings since 2018, discontinued the program last year, citing budget cuts. The court will now be underwritten out of the same funding bucket established for the program years ago.
The Department of Police Accountability had received $100,000 in city funds in 2018 to operate the program. Director Paul Henderson said at Thursday’s hearing that “sustaining this additional workload became increasingly difficult” in the years leading up to the program’s suspension.
Betz outlined a plan to hire a new hearing officer to fill the vacant seat and oversee dog court. The plan also includes employing SFPD staff already on the payroll for “clerical” work.
Thursday’s hearing was called by District 2 supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who has taken up the issue of the lapsed program in recent months.
“Without these hearings, there are real costs, both human and canine,” Sherrill said at the outset of the committee hearing. He has worked with SFDOG, an advocacy group for “responsible dog ownership.”
“A functioning hearing process protects both public safety and animal welfare. It can resolve serious situations before they escalate further,” said Sally Stevens, chair of SFDOG, at the hearing.
Sherrill was joined by District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who co-sponsored Thursday’s hearing and in whose district dog bites are a persistent problem.
Mahmood, in an exchange with Virginia Donahue, executive director of Animal Care and Control, asked whether the reinstatement of dog court would help prevent bite attacks.
“I wish I could wave a magic wand and prevent all dog bites. I don’t think we can do that. We certainly stress education,” Donahue said. “I don’t see our department expanding into that area at this time, but I agree it’s super important.”
“I think it rests with us, but like every other department in the city, we’re shrinking,” Donahue added after Mahmood asked if another department should work on preventing dog bites.
Donahue also told the supervisors that “well under 10 percent” of dog court cases resulted in euthanasia.
Sherrill, for his part, said after the hearing that hiring a dog-court hearing officer was “not part of police accountability’s core mission” and that, “facing budget cuts, they’ve made different decisions.”
“Hard to blame them for that,” Sherrill said. But, he added, the reinstatement is “definitely a good step forward after nearly a year of, frankly, uncertainty.”
Thanks for reporting.
Really concerned about the number of dogs running around with their”owners” who dont have their dogs on leashes .
Also when a person is homeless or a drug addict, they cannot even take care of themselves .
Yet they have animals ?
Finally , pitbulls are so last year and ghetto.
These breeds are no insurable by homeowners insurance .
They are animals .
It is very selfish and wrong for persons to be so entitled and think that the sidewalk is owned by them and they live and do what they want on them including let their dogs run around without control.
Remember what happened to the person with the dogs in pac heights who attacked a neighbor?
Locked up in
Pelican Bay prison .
Dogs can be lethal weapons .
Once people stop their drug usage have a place to live and can contol and care for their animals then they should be allowed to have them.
One dog bite is one too many .
I feel bad for these dogs that are in the hands of idiots .
Ugh, so much misinformation and BS in one little comment. Let’s start with the people whose dogs killed the woman in Pacific Heights; that was a wealthy and privileged couple, not homeless drug addicts. People’s ability to care for and control their animals isn’t predicated on their income or social status, although having lots of money does make it easier, as it does for most things. Also, the pit bull prejudice is so old school. They’re dogs, not last year’s fashion or “ghetto” – I mean, are you kidding me? People who can’t manage pit bulls shouldn’t have pit bulls. People who can’t manage German shepherds or Rottweilers shouldn’t have German shepherds or Rottweilers. The ghetto thing is just straight up racist BS.
Years ago at the main library a dog belonging to a street dweller mauled a security guard. After which a rule was put into place where service animals are the only dogs allowed within the public libraries.
Related to that rule a regulation should be enacted where if a dog is unlicensed and attacks a human or other animal, the dog should be considered a nuisance and euthanized. In addition the owner should be fined and permanently banned from dog ownership
Dog bites man court reopening is not news.
Man bites dog court reopening would be a major scoop.
“Man Bites Dog” – the movie!
Cheery little romp 🙂
Although I can’t recall the protagonist actually biting a dog.