As 61 dog-bite cases still await trial, Supervisor Stephen Sherrill and other SF leaders are pushing to bring back canine court hearings after the court was suspended in 2024 due to lack of funding — despite bite reports already being on the rise.

The number of dog-bite cases in San Francisco have gone up over the past few years. According to an SF Standard article from last fall, the number of dog-bite reports the San Francisco Police Department received reportedly jumped from 760 in 2023 to 868 in 2024. KGO reports that the department received 926 dog bite reports in 2025.

Per the Standard, canine bite reports were notably low in 2020, at 590, when the court heard 159 cases, but by 2024, the cases dropped to 42. In 2025, the court heard 32 cases.

As Mission Local reports, hearings through the Department of Police Accountability’s Vicious and Dangerous Dog unit, also known as “dog court,” have been suspended since 2024 when funding and resources ran out. The court was brought back briefly in early January of 2025 but closed again that July. Per the Standard, the court’s longtime judge was also fired in July, and there were no plans to hire a successor.

The SFPD's Vicious and Dangerous Dog Unit still investigates dog bites, per KGO, but the unit's hands are tied in terms of enforcing issues like muzzling or mandatory obedience training violations without a designated court to hear cases. Per Mission Local, there are currently 61 cases waiting for hearings.

This week, SF Supervisor Stephen Sherrill urged the Board of Supervisors to re-open the court.

"This is part of the board's oversight responsibilities," said Sherrill. "We're responsible for overseeing and making sure things get done."

The SFPD reportedly revised one of its policies last year in order to prioritize the enforcement of the city’s leash laws with officers issuing citations or warnings for off-leash dogs outside of designated parks.

Mission Local reports that dog bite cases are severely under-reported in the Tenderloin, where there is a large concentration of people living on the street who own dogs for protection. Reporting the bites would put victims at odds with the dogs' owners who may also be their neighbors.

“The homeless credo is if you get bitten, you don’t say anything, or you’re a rat,” said Aaron Wilson, speaking to Mission Local.

The Tenderloin police station recently launched its own dog-enforcement operations, nicknamed “Paw Patrol,” and 11 citations for off-leash or unregistered dogs were issued in February. Tenderloin officers also routinely patrol the neighborhood and educate residents about leash laws and other regulations.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to address re-opening the canine court next month, per KGO.

"The money is there, the position is there," said Sherrill. "Like, let's get this built. Let's get this going."

Image: /Flickr