{"id":103412,"date":"2026-01-02T16:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/103412\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T16:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:45:20","slug":"statewide-animal-abuse-database-coming-to-florida-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/103412\/","title":{"rendered":"Statewide animal abuse database coming to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Starting January 1, a new law will create Florida\u2019s first public database of convicted animal abusers.<\/p>\n<p>The database will take public records and pull them into an easy-to-search database that will be available on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdle.state.fl.us\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida Department of Law Enforcement\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>People who have been found guilty, or pleaded guilty or no contest to animal cruelty charges, will be included in the database.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>Statewide database will be on FDLE\u2019s website\u00a0<br \/>\nDatabase will go live by January 1 and be accessible to the public\u00a0<br \/>\nFlorida one of few states to have similar database<br \/>\nRead more: CS\/HB 255: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2025\/255\/?Tab=BillText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Aggravated Animal Cruelty<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2025\/255\/BillText\/er\/PDF\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The new law &#8211; also called Dexter\u2019s Law<\/a> &#8211; is named after the dog that was adopted and then days later was brutally killed and left in Fort De Soto Park.<\/p>\n<p>The database will assist shelters and pet rescues that vet potential owners before the adoption process is complete. It will also assist pet owners looking to re-home their pets, and even law enforcement and investigators are they work cases.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fluffanimalrescue.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fluff Animal Rescue in Pinellas Park<\/a> travels around the state to shelters that are at capacity, to rescue and rehab animals and prepare them for adoption. Rescue Manager Angela Schab says they check each potential new owner using county records, but a statewide system would make a big difference to streamline the process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will give us a broader range to all counties and really help centralize that information,\u201d she said. \u201cIf for example, if somebody moved into a new county\u2026 it\u2019s possible we missed them in the registration so this will help centralize it and be really amazing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s only a few states with similar statewide databases.<\/p>\n<p>The law also increases penalties for aggravated animal cruelty convictions and in many cases increases jail time for offenders. This part of Dexter\u2019s Law took effect on July 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think in general people see a lot but don\u2019t say something,\u201d Schab said. \u201cThis is not only bringing awareness but helping a community feel heard and increase reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State law outlines that the database should be accessible on FDLE\u2019s website starting January 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Starting January 1, a new law will create Florida\u2019s first public database of convicted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1564,274,28,2287,115,139,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-103412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-angie-angers","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-local-politics","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-pinellas-county","15":"tag-st-pete","16":"tag-st-pete-headlines","17":"tag-st-pete-news","18":"tag-st-petersburg","19":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","20":"tag-st-petersburg-news","21":"tag-tampa","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}