In June 2024, an 11-year-old Reynoldsburg girl named Avery Russell was severely injured in an attack by dogs with a known history of aggression — and the case exposed how weak Ohio’s dangerous dog laws really were. Owners of dogs that had already hurt people faced few requirements, penalties were light, and dog wardens had limited tools to act before someone else got hurt. The legislature responded with House Bill 247, universally known as Avery’s Law. Ohio dog owners now live under a rebuilt set of rules, and this guide explains what Avery’s Law changed, who it applies to, and what it requires. The legislature’s response was House Bill 247 — the measure most people search for as averys law Ohio, formally Avery’s Law.
What Is Averys Law Ohio (Avery’s Law)?
Avery’s Law is the popular name for Ohio House Bill 247 of the 136th General Assembly, which rewrote the state’s nuisance, dangerous, and vicious dog statutes in Chapter 955 of the Ohio Revised Code. Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill on December 19, 2025, after it passed the Ohio House 97–0 and the Ohio Senate 33–0 — a rare unanimous vote that reflected how broadly the old law was seen as broken. The law took effect on March 20, 2026.
The law does four big things. It sharpens the definitions of nuisance, dangerous, and vicious dogs and the “acts” that earn those labels. It attaches real duties to owning a designated dog — registration, liability insurance, and secure confinement. It creates meaningful criminal penalties for owners who negligently let a dog commit a dangerous or vicious act, penalties that largely did not exist before. And it strengthens dog wardens’ authority to investigate incidents, designate dogs, and impound animals that pose a threat. You can read the underlying statutes in Ohio Revised Code Chapter 955, which covers Ohio’s dog laws.
The Three Labels: Nuisance, Dangerous, and Vicious
Avery’s Law works through a tiered system. A dog’s label follows from its behavior, and each label carries heavier consequences.
Nuisance dog
The lowest tier covers lesser misconduct — a dog that, without provocation, chases or approaches a person in a menacing fashion or apparent attitude of attack, or otherwise behaves in a way the statute defines as a nuisance. A nuisance designation is a warning shot: it puts the dog and owner on the system’s radar.
Dangerous dog
A dog commits a “dangerous dog act” when, without provocation, it causes injury to a person by physical contact (short of killing or serious injury), causes serious injury without making physical contact — for example, someone is seriously hurt fleeing or falling — or kills another dog. Dogs that do these things can be designated dangerous.
Vicious dog
The most serious tier is a “vicious dog act”: killing a person, causing serious injury to a person by physical contact, or committing a dangerous dog act after the dog has already been designated. “Serious injury” is defined broadly — it includes injuries carrying a risk of death, permanent disfigurement, long-term or severe pain, or temporary or permanent loss of function. A dog designated vicious, or one that has committed a vicious act, sits at the top of the enforcement ladder.
What Owners of Designated Dogs Must Do
Before Avery’s Law, a dangerous dog designation came with requirements on paper that were often honored loosely, and enforcement was inconsistent from county to county. The new law tightens the package of duties for owners, keepers, and harborers of dangerous and vicious dogs:
- Annual registration of the dog with the county auditor, including the $100 annual registration fee.
- Liability insurance of at least $100,000 for each designated dog — this requirement is now stated expressly in the law rather than left ambiguous.
- Secure confinement — the dog must be confined in a locked pen with a top, a locked fenced yard, or another secure enclosure, or kept within the owner’s home, so it cannot escape or reach the public.
- Control off the property — when a designated dog leaves the property, it must be restrained, such as on a leash, consistent with the statutory confinement rules.
- Identification and notice requirements, such as microchipping and warning signage, as set out in the revised statutes and county enforcement. A dangerous dog must also wear the dangerous dog registration tag on its collar at all times.
Failing to comply with these requirements is itself a criminal offense, separate from anything the dog does. That was one of the old law’s biggest gaps: previously, owners who ignored confinement and insurance rules faced weak consequences until another attack happened.
New Criminal Penalties for Owners
The heart of Avery’s Law is personal accountability. It is now an offense for an owner, keeper, or harborer to negligently fail to prevent their dog from committing a nuisance, dangerous, or vicious dog act (the standard is recklessness for animal shelters). Penalties escalate with the dog’s behavior and the owner’s record:
- Nuisance dog act: minor misdemeanor for a first offense, rising to a fourth-degree misdemeanor on later offenses.
- Dangerous dog act: fourth-degree misdemeanor for a first offense, third-degree misdemeanor for subsequent offenses — and a first-degree misdemeanor if the act injured a person.
- Vicious dog act: third-degree misdemeanor for a first offense, second-degree misdemeanor for subsequent offenses — escalating to a third-degree felony when the act injures or kills a person.
On top of fines and possible jail or prison time, the court may order the dog humanely destroyed, at the owner’s expense, when the dog has committed a vicious or dangerous act or seriously injured another animal or person. In the most serious cases — such as a previously designated vicious dog killing someone — owners face the gravest charges the statute allows. The message from the legislature was deliberate: owning a dog with a known history of aggression is now a serious legal responsibility, not a paperwork exercise.
Stronger Powers for Dog Wardens
County dog wardens are the front line of enforcement, and Avery’s Law gives them clearer authority to investigate reported incidents, gather evidence, designate dogs under the new definitions, and impound dogs when the statute allows it — including dogs involved in serious attacks while cases are pending. The law also works alongside Ohio’s existing bite-reporting rules: dog bites must still be reported to the local health commissioner, which starts the official paper trail that designation hearings rely on.
Designation is not supposed to be arbitrary. Owners receive notice and can contest a designation through the court process, and the definitions turn on what the dog actually did without provocation — police dogs performing official duties are carved out, and provocation remains a defense built into the act definitions.
Avery’s Law vs. the Old Law
To see why lawmakers acted, it helps to compare the framework Avery replaced. Under the old system, Ohio did have dangerous and vicious dog designations, and designated-dog owners were supposed to confine their dogs and carry insurance. But the definitions were looser, the insurance requirement was widely criticized as unclear and under-enforced, and — most importantly — an owner whose dog attacked someone often faced little more than a minor citation unless prosecutors could fit the facts into general offenses. Dogs with documented attack histories could remain in the same home, in the same yard, with no meaningful change in how they were kept. Investigators and victims’ families described a system that reacted to paperwork violations instead of preventing the next attack.
The new framework attacks each of those weaknesses directly: definitions now describe specific acts, designation triggers concrete duties with an express insurance dollar figure, warden authority is spelled out, and negligently allowing a dangerous or vicious act is its own crime with penalties that climb to the felony level when a person is seriously hurt or killed. The unanimous votes in both chambers suggest legislators saw the old gaps the same way the Russell family experienced them.
How a Designation Happens
Designation usually begins with an incident: a bite or attack reported to the health commissioner or dog warden, an investigation, and a determination by the warden that the dog’s behavior meets the statutory definition of a nuisance, dangerous, or vicious act. The owner is notified of the designation and of the duties that come with it, and owners have the ability to challenge a designation through the courts — the system is accusatory, not automatic, and the definitions require that the dog acted without provocation. That provocation element matters: a dog that bites a trespasser who is tormenting it is in a different legal position from a dog that attacks a child unprompted, and the statute’s civil liability rules in ORC 955.28 contain related exceptions as well.
Once a designation is final, the clock starts on compliance — registration with the county auditor in the owner’s county of residence, proof of the required liability insurance, and confinement arrangements are not optional extras. Owners who move or transfer a designated dog also face disclosure duties under Ohio’s dog laws, so the dog’s history follows it rather than being reset by a new owner. Anyone acquiring a dog with any incident history should ask direct questions and check with the county dog warden where the dog lived.
Insurance and Registration: the Practical Details
The $100,000 liability insurance requirement deserves emphasis because it is where many owners will struggle first. Standard homeowner’s and renter’s policies often include personal liability coverage that can satisfy the requirement, but insurers may exclude specific dogs, specific breeds, or animals with a bite history once they learn of a designation — which the owner is obligated to navigate honestly, because letting coverage lapse while keeping a designated dog compounds the legal problem. Specialty animal-liability policies exist for exactly this situation. Keep certificates current and on file with the county as the registration rules require; under Avery’s Law, non-compliance is a crime even if the dog never leaves the yard.
What Avery’s Law Did Not Change
Avery’s Law rebuilt the regulatory and criminal side of dog law, but victims’ civil remedies were already strong and remain so. Under Ohio Revised Code 955.28, a dog’s owner, keeper, or harborer is strictly liable for injuries, death, or property loss the dog causes, subject to limited exceptions such as the victim teasing or tormenting the dog, or trespassing to commit a crime. An injured person generally does not have to prove the owner was careless — the statute assigns responsibility by default. Avery’s Law added prevention and punishment on top of that compensation framework; it did not replace it.
What Ohio Dog Owners Should Do Now
Most Ohio dog owners will never deal with a designation. But the law is a good prompt to do the basics well:
- License your dog with the county and keep vaccinations current.
- Maintain secure fencing and never let a dog with any history of aggression roam.
- Take every bite or lunging incident seriously — report, document, and change how the dog is managed. A first incident now enters a system with real escalation.
- Check your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance: if your dog is ever designated, you will need at least $100,000 in liability coverage, and some insurers treat certain histories differently.
- If you rent, understand your lease and local rules too — our explainer on Ohio pet deposit rules for renters covers the money side of renting with a dog.
The Bottom Line
Avery’s Law turned Ohio’s dangerous dog framework from a reactive, loosely enforced system into one with clear labels, mandatory insurance and confinement for designated dogs, expanded warden authority, and criminal penalties — up to felony level — for owners who negligently let dangerous or vicious acts happen. It is named for a child whose injuries showed exactly what the old law failed to prevent, and its unanimous passage suggests Ohio intends the new rules to be enforced.
This article summarizes Ohio law for general information only and is not legal advice. Dog designation cases are fact-specific; if your dog has been designated or you were injured in an attack, consult an Ohio attorney about your situation.
