Dallas County, TX Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Sec. 6-193 sits in Article IV, Vicious and Dangerous Animals, of Chapter 6 of the Dallas County Code and was adopted by Ord. No. 2001-1997 on October 16, 2001, then amended by Ord. No. 2003-1302 on July 22, 2003. The ban reaches any person who owns, harbors, or has custody or control of a dangerous wild animal for any purpose within the county, with no local carve-out for private collectors, breeders, or exhibitors beyond whatever state or federal law separately allows. The ordinance borrows its definition of dangerous wild animal directly from Texas Health and Safety Code chapter 822, subchapter E, rather than writing its own list, so anything the state classifies as a dangerous wild animal is automatically covered here.

Chapter 6's general definitions section, Sec. 6-1, reinforces the ban: it excludes skunks, nonhuman primates, and any other wild, exotic, or carnivorous species from the definition of a domestic animal that may otherwise be kept or licensed under the rest of the chapter. Sec. 6-193 sits alongside two related Article IV provisions: Sec. 6-191, which lets the county impound, or, if impoundment cannot be made safely, destroy without notice to the owner, a vicious animal running at large, and Sec. 6-192, which requires any guard animal trained to attack to be physically confined and its enclosure posted with warning signs in letters at least two inches high.

Enforcement of Sec. 6-193 runs on two tracks: a criminal charge, and a civil injunction the county can pursue in district court to stop an ongoing violation, which lets the county attorney shut down a dangerous-wild-animal situation even without waiting on a criminal conviction.