Ohio lawmakers are pushing a sweeping animal welfare bill that would bar convicted abusers from owning pets, create a public dangerous-dog registry, and let counties maintain their own ‘Do Not Adopt’ lists of people convicted of animal cruelty. House Bill 417 would ban misdemeanor offenders from owning companion animals for two years, while felony offenders would face an indefinite ban on owning, possessing, or even living with cats, dogs, or other companion animals.
The bill, sponsored by Republican Reps. Phil Plummer and Tom Young, was reported out of the House Public Safety Committee as a substitute bill in June 2026, according to Cleveland.com. The committee voted unanimously to recommend the substitute for passage, and the legislation now awaits a vote by the full Ohio House of Representatives. Companion animals under the bill include cats, dogs, and other animals kept inside a home, but exclude livestock and wildlife.
From Statewide Mandate to County Option
The bill has already changed shape once. As originally introduced, House Bill 417 would have required the Auditor of State to maintain a single mandatory statewide ‘Do Not Adopt’ registry, according to the County Commissioners Association of Ohio. County officials raised administrative concerns about the cost of running a state-managed database, and lawmakers responded by shifting the framework so that counties could create their own public ‘Do Not Adopt’ lists instead of a single required statewide system.
Under the current version, the registry would list residents convicted of animal abuse, with misdemeanor offenders appearing for two years and felony offenders listed indefinitely. Registry participants may petition for removal after transferring ownership of the dog or after its death, per the same Cleveland.com report. That optional, county-by-county structure leaves open questions about how uniformly the adoption bans will actually be enforced across Ohio's 88 counties.
A Statewide Dangerous Dog Registry, Too
Separately, the bill would create a mandatory statewide dangerous and vicious dog registry that would include the names and addresses of people who have registered dogs designated dangerous or vicious. That measure builds on Ohio's ‘Avery’s Law,’ which took effect earlier in 2026 and revised the state's definitions and handling of nuisance, dangerous, and vicious dogs.
Avery's Law, formally House Bill 247, was signed by Governor Mike DeWine in December 2025 and took effect on March 20, 2026, according to the Ohio House of Representatives. It mandates that courts order the humane euthanasia of any dog that kills or causes serious physical injury to a person, and requires owners of dogs designated dangerous or vicious to carry at least $100,000 in liability insurance, per Yonas & Phillabaum. The law was named after 11-year-old Avery Russell, who suffered severe injuries in a 2024 dog attack in Reynoldsburg. Avery's Law also introduced updated shelter terminology in parts of Ohio's dog code, a change House Bill 417 co-sponsor Bernard Willis has proposed extending further by replacing the term ‘dog pound’ with ‘animal shelter’ statewide.
New Crime for Corpse Abuse
House Bill 417 would also establish a new crime for abusing a companion animal's corpse, a provision that echoes a separate bill, House Bill 351, which would have criminalized the same conduct. Under the current bill, corpse abuse would be a first-degree misdemeanor for a first offense and a fifth-degree felony for subsequent offenses, with offenders required to undergo psychological evaluation or counseling at their own expense.
Lawmakers pointed to a 2023 incident in Miamisburg, in which a teenager stabbed a dog's corpse and threw it into a dumpster, as an example of conduct that police could not charge under existing law. Plummer, who also described overbreeding, crowded shelters, and abandoned dogs forming packs in Montgomery County, said Ohio's animal laws are outdated and that lawmakers should address them, according to Cleveland.com's reporting.
Fines, Training, and Sterilization Requirements
The bill sets mandatory $2,500 fines for misdemeanors and fifth-degree felonies, with fourth-degree felony fines ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 and third-degree felony fines ranging from $2,500 to $10,000. Fine revenue from animal-cruelty convictions would go to the humane society or law-enforcement agency primarily responsible for investigating the case, and county humane societies would be required to use that revenue specifically for agent training, according to the Ohio Legislature.
Lawmakers also changed how officers would receive animal-welfare training. The original bill proposed two hours of annual animal-law training for police, but legislators shifted that to two hours of instruction during officers' initial academy training instead. House Bill 417 would additionally require dogs to be sterilized before adoption or transfer from qualifying shelters, expanding earlier ownership restrictions that applied only to dogs into a broader mandate covering all companion animals.
Shelters Warn of Unfunded Costs
Not everyone is fully on board with how the bill is written. The Legislative Service Commission found that the sterilization requirements could delay adoptions and increase housing and care costs for shelters. Sharon Harvey raised similar concerns, questioning how ownership bans would be enforced and whether mandatory $2,500 fines could realistically be collected in lower-level negligence cases. She also warned that smaller shelters may lack the money or veterinary access needed to comply with mandatory sterilization.
Plummer himself acknowledged the sterilization requirement could amount to an unfunded mandate. Still, Harvey supported creating an offense for abusing animal remains and backed a centralized dangerous-dog registry, while Bruce Langos separately voiced support for mandatory animal-law training, ownership restrictions, and the new registries. The American Kennel Club weighed in as well, submitting feedback in January 2026 that requested clarifying amendments to preserve law enforcement discretion in minor negligence cases while still supporting strict penalties for deliberate cruelty, according to the American Kennel Club.
How Ohio Compares Nationally
Public animal-abuser registries remain rare nationally. Tennessee established the country's first statewide public registry in 2016, and Florida launched its own statewide database under ‘Dexter's Law’ on January 1, 2026, keeping felony offenders listed publicly for ten years — a move Hoodline covered in its report on Florida's new registry. Outside of statewide efforts, local governments including Cook County, Illinois, and New York City have built their own registries to keep convicted offenders from adopting shelter pets, though such local systems often struggle to enforce bans when offenders move across county or municipal lines.
Ohio's push to update its animal welfare laws follows a series of legal milestones. The state first elevated serious companion animal abuse to a fifth-degree felony in 2016 through ‘Goddard's Law,’ named for longtime Cleveland television meteorologist and animal advocate Dick Goddard, according to the Cleveland Animal Protective League. Before that law passed, first-time animal cruelty offenses in Ohio were prosecuted only as misdemeanors regardless of severity. In October 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled in State v. Kyles that Goddard's Law's felony protections apply to all dogs and cats statewide, including unowned strays and community animals, resolving a split among lower appellate courts, as reported by the Advertiser-Tribune.
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