HB 2328 - Offenses for cruelty to animals

This bill closes numerous "loopholes" in the current animal cruelty statute that for years have allowed many aggregated acts of animal cruelty to go unpunished.
This bill has made it through the House and Senate and is now on its way to the Governor's desk to be signed.

On September 1st, for the first time in Texas history, it will be a crime to:

Commit cruelty to stray and feral dogs and cats;

Recklessly commit cruelty to an animal (prosecutors will no longer have to prove that a person intended to commit cruelty);

Kill or cause serious bodily injury to animals "in a cruel manner"—which is defined as "a manner that causes or permits unnecessary or unjustifiable pain or suffering" (it will no longer be necessary to prove "torture");

Fail to provide water to an animal in a person's custody;

HB 916 - Dog Fighting

H.B. 916 will make it a state jail felony to be involved in dog fighting and punish those in attendance.
This bill has passed the House and Senate is on its way to the governor's desk to be signed.

SB911 - Horse Slaughter for Human Consumption

When H.B. 2476 and S.B. 1742, bills that would have repealed the state’s 58-year ban on horse slaughter for human consumption, failed to pass last week, one Texas legislator took matters into his own hands. Without any debate, Republican Senator Glenn Hegar inserted an amendment into S.B. 911 - a bill regarding the duties and regulations of the Texas Animal Health Commission—that will sidestep the law that currently makes this form of horse slaughter illegal.
Because of so many letters supporting the amended bill's defeat, the bill did not find the needed support to make it out of committee.