In April 2023, a 12-year-old girl was taken to a Miami emergency room with puncture wounds to her arm after one of her family's pit bull-type dogs turned on her at home. Florida law requires hospitals to report dog bites. Animal control investigated. And then they issued a citation for missing registration and an outdated rabies vaccine, and left the dog where it was.

No seizure. No behavioral evaluation. No mandatory follow-up. No record that would follow the family if they moved.

They moved.

On March 19, 2026, Moraima Simon, a 61-year-old grandmother, was walking on her son's rural Alachua County property with her 3-year-old grandson when she was bitten by two of the family's dogs. Her body was discovered by returning family members. The toddler was found nearby, unharmed. Two dogs, Chanel and Scrappy, are now held at the Alachua County shelter pending a decision on euthanasia. The official cause of death has not yet been determined, but bite marks were found on her arms and her son has acknowledged the dogs contributed to her death.

The 2023 Miami-Dade bite incident and the 2026 death in Alachua County involve the same family and the same pattern of ownership. But because Florida has no statewide system for tracking dangerous dog incidents across county lines, Alachua County animal control had no way of knowing what Miami-Dade animal control already knew. The prior history did not follow the dogs. It did not follow the owners. And a grandmother who should have been safe on a family property paid the price for that gap.

This is not about breed. It is about accountability. When a dog bites a child badly enough to send her to the emergency room, that incident must carry consequences that cannot be erased by moving to a new county. The owner must face mandatory behavioral evaluation requirements for the animal. The record must be accessible to animal control agencies statewide. And when the same owner's dogs are involved in a second serious incident, the law must treat that pattern as exactly what it is.

Florida's dangerous dog statutes have not kept pace with what this case makes plain. A citation for missing paperwork is not a response to a child in the emergency room. And a child in the emergency room should have been enough to prevent a grandmother's death.

Sign this petition to call on Florida lawmakers to require mandatory seizure and behavioral evaluation of dogs involved in bite incidents causing injury, establish a statewide dangerous dog incident database accessible to all county animal control agencies, and create escalating penalties for owners whose dogs have multiple bite incidents including mandatory training, liability requirements, and potential ownership bans.