The Dog and Hog Fight Page

1999 Legislation:

The Dog and Hog Fight Page

HB 1389, by Rep. Ron Wilson, would outlaw dog and hog fights. That's dog versus hog fights, not dog versus dog or hog versus hog, not sheep versus hog, etc. The bill would outlaw not only staging a dog and hog fight, but also watching a dog and hog fight.

The bill appears to have serious constitutional problems. If you put a dog and a hog in the same room, you know what's going to happen -- they are going to fight. How can you not watch them fight?
Report on HB 1389 from Pasadena: This must be from deeep East Texas, since they don't have dog and hog fights even in Pasadena.
Report on HB 1389 from Big Spring: And I thought we were hicks.
Report on HB 1389 from Lufkin: It is rare indeed that anything that happens in Austin affects the lives of people in deep, deep, East Texas. In fact, not since the consanguinity laws has any discussion of a prospective law produced such an emotional response from the true country folk of East Texas. Huntin' wild hogs is next to Godliness in this country and any attempt to make it unlawful will meet with the same response that Prohibition had on drinkin'. Indeed, the sheriff of Trinity County had already had to reassure his constitutents that even if such a law passed the legislature, it would not be enforced in his county (and any law enforcement officer who tried to enforce it would disappear into the endless back woods of East Texas). The term "untouchables" would take on a whole new meaning for any law officers attempting to become the "Hog Police", or in ethnic lingo, "The Pigs".
(By the way, I'm not attributing these reports to their senders to protect the not-so-innocent.)

The Wall Street Journal is all over the dog and hog bill. Its March 17, 1999, article entitled "Legislation Threatens a Texas Tradition: Dogs Taking on Hogs," the Journal reports that the bill is drawing opposition from Phillips Petroleum Co. and Level 3 Communications Inc., among others. Rep. Wilson's Capitol office has received about 500 phone calls, including a death threat, the Journal reports. The paper quotes Matt Williams, a Nacogdoches-based outdoors writer, as saying "What are you supposed to do? . . . . A dog is a working animal. It's in these dogs' blood." The Journal goes on to report that most of the opposition is from hunters and landowners who use dogs to hunt and/or control wild feral hogs, which do damage to land and crops.

Please email your observations and commentary on HB 1389 to webmaster@texasprobate.net . Worthy comments will be posted here on this page.

The bill is pending in the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee. It will be interesting to see who the witnesses for and against this bill will be. If available, an link to the audio of the committee hearing will be posted to this page.

The bill's effective date is September 1, 1999, so apparently you can proceed with your dog and hog fights up until that time.