Pierce County maintains a page on its own website telling people how to reach City of Tacoma Animal Control. Agencies do not build pages like that unless the wrong calls arrive constantly.
The split is simple to describe and easy to get wrong in the moment. Tacoma runs its own animal control. Pierce County Animal Control operates out of the Sheriff's Department and serves a different area. They have different phone numbers, different complaint systems, and different paperwork.
The incident address decides the agency
Not your mailing address, and not where the dog's owner lives. The location where the bite happened is what determines which agency has jurisdiction, and a Tacoma mailing address does not settle the question for the areas around the city.
Confirm the address before you make a call. A report filed with the wrong agency does not get quietly forwarded to the right one.
Inside Tacoma
City of Tacoma Animal Control takes complaints through Tacoma FIRST 311 or by phone at (253) 627-7387, selecting option 2. The City notes that complaints are subject to public disclosure if not submitted anonymously.
Tacoma's leash rule requires dogs to be on a lead no longer than eight feet or confined to the owner's property, with a designated off-leash area as the only exception.
Pierce County Animal Control
Pierce County Animal Control sits within the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, working out of the Parkland-Spanaway Precinct on Pacific Avenue South.
The County directs emergencies to 911, and is specific about what counts: aggressive and threatening animals currently loose, injured domestic animals, and animal cruelty or abuse in progress. For non-emergencies it lists (253) 798-PETS (7387) and an online complaint form.
If you reach voicemail, the County asks for your name, address and phone number, the nature of the complaint, and the animal owner's address if you know it. It also says that after making a complaint you may be contacted to obtain a statement or additional information.
The affidavit step, and the order it has to happen in
This is the detail most worth knowing about a Pierce County complaint, and it is easy to miss.
If you are directed to submit an affidavit, the County requires that you obtain an incident number first, before completing and returning the affidavit. Affidavits can be downloaded, printed and mailed to Animal Control at the Parkland-Spanaway Precinct, or submitted by email.
Two practical consequences. Ask for the incident number during your first call, not later. And an affidavit that arrives without one may not attach to anything, which means the statement that was supposed to document your account may simply not be in the file when you go looking for it.
The County also notes that violations of county code or state law carry penalties ranging from an infraction to imprisonment, depending on what happened.
Which jurisdiction you are in
Pierce County Animal Control's service area is limited, and several cities in the county run their own animal control or contract for it separately. Rather than rely on a list that will drift out of date, check the County's own animal control pages for its current service area, and check the city's website if the incident happened inside a municipality.
If the address is inside Tacoma, use Tacoma. If it is in unincorporated Pierce County, use the County. If it is inside another Pierce County city, confirm before calling either.
What records exist afterward, and where
City records live with Tacoma, requestable through the City's public records process. Tacoma Police reports go through South Sound 911. County animal control records live with the Sheriff's Department.
Washington's Public Records Act requires a request to identify the record being sought, so include the date, the location, and the incident or case number. If you are unsure which agency responded, that is another reason to pin down the jurisdiction early rather than a year later.
State civil law does not change at the city line
RCW 16.08.040 makes the owner of a dog liable for damages when the dog bites a person who is in a public place or lawfully on private property, regardless of the dog's former viciousness or the owner's knowledge of it. That is the rule on a Tacoma sidewalk and on an unincorporated county road alike. Lawful presence is governed by RCW 16.08.050 and provocation by RCW 16.08.060.
What changes across the boundary is which ordinance applies, which agency investigates, which complaint process you use, and where the paperwork ends up. What does not change is whether the dog's owner is responsible.
The office handles Washington dog-bite claims across King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. A review costs nothing, and there is no fee unless the claim resolves in your favor.