Companion Animal Care Articles used with permission from All-Creatures.org

The National Link Coalition reports on a Florida bill that would create a system to coordinate emergency services in response to reports of domestic violence—and would add animal cruelty to the statutory definition of domestic violence.

Florida to Consider Coercive Animal Abuse as Domestic Violence
From December 2025 LINK-Letter, The National Link Coalition
December 2025

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A bipartisan bill pre-filed in the Florida Legislature for consideration in the 2026 session would develop a statewide emergency communications plan to respond to domestic violence and dating violence incidents, with two provisions that would add animal cruelty to the statutory definition of domestic violence and grounds for issuing a protection-from-abuse order.

HB 277, sponsored by Reps. Debra Tendrich (D – Palm Beach County) and Danny Nix, Jr. (R – Charlotte & Sarasota Counties) would create the “Domestic Emergency and Batterers Reform and Accountability Act.” It would create a system whereby 911 calls reporting domestic or dating violence would get coordination among all emergency services, including law enforcement, firefighting, EMS, poison control, suicide prevention, and emergency management, with the flagged address remaining in the system for at least one year after the 911 call. Each county would integrate the system based on its resources and availability.

Emergency medical technicians, paramedics, firefighters, and volunteer firefighters would be required to take training classes on domestic violence, dating violence and strangulation for certification and recertification.

In addition to specifically naming animal cruelty within the definition of domestic violence, the bill addresses The Link in protection orders. Injunctions for protection against domestic violence, which since 2020 have allowed Florida courts to award petitioners exclusive care and control of pets and prohibit respondents from harming the animals, would now add specific language identifying the respondent’s intentional injuring or killing a family pet, service animal or emotional support animal or using the animal as a means of coercive control as grounds for issuing a protection order.

Such coercive control or harm to animals would be specifically identified as factors for courts to determine whether a petitioner has reasonable cause to believe she or he is in imminent danger of becoming a victim of domestic violence.

Acts of aggravated animal cruelty would be sentence multipliers in courts’ determination of sentencing options for convicted offenders.

Currently, acts or threats of animal cruelty intended to coerce a victim are defined as domestic or dating violence or stalking in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia.

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: December 9, 2025
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