Florida Dog Law

Florida regulates dogs across more statutes than almost anyone realises, and most of them are recent. Service animals and emotional support animals were rewritten in 2020. Breed ordinances were preempted in 2023. The dangerous dog statute was overhauled in 2025. The pet purchase statute was amended again in 2026.

Very little published guidance keeps up with that. This section is an attempt to keep one accurate, dated reference in one place, quoting the statutes exactly rather than paraphrasing them.

What this firm does, and does not, handle

This is a reference section, and it is worth being plain about the line.

We handle injury claims — people hurt by dogs in Florida. Bites, and non-bite injuries under § 767.01.

We do not handle housing disputes, HOA and condo matters, service animal access complaints, pet purchase claims, veterinary malpractice, animal cruelty prosecutions, or pet custody. Those pages exist because the law is badly explained elsewhere and people need a straight answer, not because we are looking for that work. Where you need a lawyer in one of those areas, we will say so and point you somewhere useful.

Nothing here is legal advice. Every page says so, and means it.

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If someone was injured

The core of Florida dog law, and the core of this practice.

• Strict liability under § 767.04 — owners are liable from the first bite, with two defences written into the same sentence.
• The “Bad Dog” sign defence — a posted sign can eliminate liability outright. Three things break it.
• Injuries that are not bites — § 767.01 covers “any damage done by the owner’s dog to a person.” Most states have no equivalent.
• Comparative fault — your share comes off the top, and above 50% it bars recovery entirely.
• The filing deadline — work from two years.

Access rights

Two different animals, two different statutes, and conflating them is the single most common error in this area.

• Service animals — § 413.08 — limited to dogs and miniature horses. Public accommodation access, the grounds for exclusion, handler liability, and the criminal penalty for misrepresenting one.
• Emotional support animals — § 760.27 — a housing statute, not an access statute. No extra fees, no diagnosis disclosure, and an online “registration” is worth nothing on its own.

An ESA is not a service animal under Florida law, and § 413.08 says so expressly.

Planning ahead

• Pet trusts — § 736.0408 — the animal must already be alive, somebody other than the caregiver should be able to enforce it, and leftover money goes to your estate unless the trust says otherwise.

Cruelty and welfare

• Animal cruelty — § 828.12 — two tiers, mandatory minimum fines on the felony, and each separate act chargeable separately. Amended in 2026.

Emergencies

• Breaking into a car to save a dog — § 768.139 — Florida protects you from paying for the window, but only if you meet five conditions. Two of them are the ones people usually miss.

Housing and associations

• HOA and condo dog rules — breed preemption binds local governments, not private covenants. Assistance animal rules run the other way. The two get swapped constantly.

Buying and selling

• Buying a dog from a dealer — § 828.29 — the certificate of veterinary inspection, a 30-day window for illness and a one-year window for hereditary conditions, three remedies, and punitive damages of not less than $2,500. Amended in 2026, so most guidance you will find describes the old version.

Dangerous dogs and local rules

• Dangerous dog classification — §§ 767.11–767.16 — rewritten in 2025. Confiscation now turns on a bite severity score, and a classified dog requires $100,000 of liability insurance.
• Breed-specific rules are preempted — since 1 October 2023 no Florida local government may regulate dogs by breed, weight or size. Miami-Dade’s ban ended that day.
• What has changed, and when — a dated record of every amendment since 2023.

Not covered here yet

Said plainly rather than left as dead links. Each needs the statute pulled and read before anything goes up, and none of it is worth publishing half-researched:

pet trusts · local leash, tethering and at-large ordinances (these are per-jurisdiction, so they belong on the county pages rather than one statewide page) · veterinary malpractice · pet custody on divorce. The last two turn on case law rather than a statute, and both are outside what this firm handles.

If one of those is what brought you here, we would rather tell you we have not written it than hand you something vague.