AND THE HORSE IS OK TOO.
Sergeant Curl, Houston Police Department on patrol at the blessing of the pets event Houston Heights.
Every year on Heights St. at 19th , Saint Andrew's Episcopal blesses the Pets.. Dogs, cats, birds, the occasional iguana. one year, HPD Mounted brought Beauty. One line in a photo note stopped roll call.
By Jim Towers, MJA, JD. Photojournalist.
Houston Heights Independent | August 2026
The priest has been doing this for twenty-two years. He has blessed dogs and cats and birds and a goat once and something in a carrier that made sounds he could not identify. He blesses them all. That is the point of the Blessing of the Pets at 19th and Heights — every living thing that shows up gets blessed. No exceptions. No auditions.
In 2018, HPD asked who shall we send? HPD Mounted Patrol answered, send me, and sent a horse.
HPD mounted patrol working.
His officer is a female HPD Mounted Patrol officer who brought him to 19th Street on an October morning and stood with her in a church parking lot while a priest said the blessing over both of them. The neighborhood watched. The cameras came up. Nobody wanted to miss the frame of a Houston police horse receiving a blessing on one of the oldest streets in one of the oldest neighborhoods inside the city limits.
THE STREET ITSELF
Sergeant Curl in his partner moving out.
19th Street at Yale is the heart of the Houston Heights in the way that a main street is the heart of a town — which is exactly what it was. The Heights was, its own incorporated city before Houston annexed it in 1918. 19th Street was its downtown. The store fronts are pre-war. The scale is human. It looks like a Texas main street because it was one.
Retriever on his way to receive a blessing.
Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church has been part of that corridor long enough to anchor it. The Blessing of the Pets happens on its grounds every year and draws the neighborhood the way the neighborhood needs to be drawn — out of the houses, onto the street, with the animals, with the children, with the priest who has been blessing living things for twenty-two years and hasn't run out of patience for any of them yet.
A heights resident prepares to have her personal pet goose blessed at the blessing of the pets ceremony.
The Blessing of the Pets is not a soft feature. It is documentation of a neighborhood being itself. That is the job of this publication — to document the Heights being the Heights, on the record, in the archive, so that when someone asks twenty years from now what this place was like at this moment in its history, the answer exists.
A Shiba standing by to be blessed, Houston Heights.
I was there. I got the frames. And I was so impressed, I was compelled to I send a selection of the photos of that day, of their officer working the event to the HPD Mounted Patrol unit with a note.
Sergeant Curl and his officer standing watch. Houston Heights blessing of the pets.
The lieutenant read it at roll call.
Out loud. To the assembled squad. He stopped everything to read a one-line note from a neighborhood photographer to a room full of mounted patrol officers who work together every day. They know exactly who the representative is and who the horse is. They understand precisely why that line lands the way it does. To the Houston Police Department mounted patrol division. Thank you very much for sending your representatives to work the event. Sergeant Curl and his partner did an outstanding job performing their duties in the finest traditions of the service of the Houston Police Department. he note said:“She is truly a rare ,radiant and magnificent beauty………………………..and the horse is OK too.”
Sergeant Curl ready for his close-up.
After that with her picture up on the monitor of her on Sergeant Curl, the real room just burst into laughter. There was applause and whistling. As a lieutenant looked directly at the patrol officer. She was smiling sinking into her seat at the table while several officers pated her on the back, rubbed her shoulders ,congratulated her while she turned slightly red. Smiling, she said…, I'm gonna kill him. After everybody was done laughing and it died down, the Sergeant said ,”all right people, you know what they expect out there so let's be careful out there ,be safe.”
That is what 19th Street does. It produces moments that stop rooms.
19th Street at Yale is the heart of the Houston Heights in the way that a main street is the heart of a town — which is exactly what it was. The Heights was its own incorporated city before Houston annexed it in 1918. 19th Street was its downtown. The storefronts are pre-war. The scale is human. It looks like a Texas main street because it was one.
Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church has been part of that corridor long enough to anchor it. The Blessing of the Pets happens on its grounds every year and draws the neighborhood the way the neighborhood needs to be drawn — out of the houses, onto the street, with the animals, with the children, with the priest who has been blessing living things for twenty-two years and hasn't run out of patience for any of them yet.
HPD mounted patrol working the crowd.
MURRAY'S REPORT
Murray on the scent. The Sgt, Major. Official mascot HHI and senior beat reporter and correspondent.
Murray is a basset hound who is HHI’s own mascot and cub reporter, attended the ceremony in his official capacity as HHI Staff Reporter, and an active sergeant major of the security department. He also received a blessing while working the ceremony. The priest paused when he reached him.Is this the dog from the newspaper?
Yes, Father.
The priest blessed him twice. Just in case. A dog who is on the scent working a beat for civic journalism deserves an extra blessing.
Murray's one ear was up the entire time. He was tracking something in the direction of the incense. He is always on the scent. He was blessed for it.
And The horse was OK too.
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© 2026 Houston Heights Independent. All rights reserved. Registered under Jim Towers, AA. BS.MJA.JD. No part of this publication, including text, layout, and original photography, may be reproduced, distributed, broadcast, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the Editor-in-Chief. For media licensing inquiries or syndication requests, contact at houstonheightsindependent@gmail.com. or 210-288-3034. Standard licensing fees apply.
HOUSTON HEIGHTS INDEPENDENT
Photos: Jim Towers Civic Investigative Photojournalist/ Houston Heights Independent
The Houston Heights Independent covered this story on the ground. HHI is a civic journalism publication operating on the Edward R. Murrow standard.
