Bitten by a Dog in Ontario? What to Do in the First 48 Hours

One second you are reaching down to pet a friendly looking dog, saying hello to a neighbour, or walking past a house you pass every day. The next second there is a set of teeth on your arm, your leg, or your child's face, and the world narrows to pain, blood, and the sound of your own heart. When the shock wears off a little, the questions start. Do I need a hospital? Whose dog was that? Is the owner going to pay for this? Did I just do something that hurt my own case? In Ontario, the choices you make in the first two days after a dog bite can protect both your health and your right to be compensated, and most people make some of those choices without realizing how much is riding on them.

Here is the short version, so you have it right away. Get medical care, even if the wound looks small. Photograph everything before it heals or gets cleaned up. Find out who owns or was handling the dog, and get their contact and insurance details. Get the names of any witnesses. Report the bite to your municipal animal services and your local public health unit. Keep the torn, bloody clothing and start writing down what happened and how you feel. Then, before you give any statement to the owner or their insurance company, talk to a lawyer. You generally have 2 years to sue in Ontario, but a claim is built or quietly lost in the first days, while the evidence still exists.

Dog bite claims in Ontario run through a specific law, the Dog Owners' Liability Act. That statute is unusually favourable to injured people. It makes the owner of a dog liable for a bite or attack whether or not the dog ever showed a mean streak before, and whether or not the owner did anything careless. This guide explains what to do after a dog bite in Ontario, step by step, and it explains the law behind each step: who counts as an owner you can claim against, why the old idea that "every dog gets one free bite" is simply wrong here, what happens if the bite was partly your own fault, and what a dog bite claim can actually be worth, using a real Ontario case as an illustration.

If you or your child was seriously bitten, the smartest early move is to speak with a Toronto personal injury lawyer before you sign anything, give a recorded statement, or let a deadline slip. The call costs you nothing and it can change what your claim is worth.

This article is general information about Ontario law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Every bite is different, and the outcome of any claim depends on its own facts and medical evidence. If you were hurt, do not guess whether you have a case. Talk to a lawyer who can look at what happened and tell you where you stand.

What to do after a dog bite in Ontario: the first 48 hours at a glance

If you read nothing else, read this. These are the steps that protect your health and your claim at the same time, and the order roughly follows how the first two days unfold. The rest of this guide explains each one in plain language and shows you the law behind it.

Notice the theme. Almost every step does two jobs at once. It looks after you, and it preserves proof. That is not an accident. In a dog bite case the same facts that protect your body, such as a doctor cleaning and recording the wound, are the facts that later prove what the dog did and what it cost you, and they are the first records a dog bite lawyer in Toronto will ask for.

What does Ontario law say about dog bites?

Ontario has a dedicated statute for dog bites, and it is worth understanding because it is the reason these claims are often stronger than people expect. The Dog Owners' Liability Act, which lawyers shorten to DOLA, sets out when the owner of a dog is legally responsible for the harm the dog causes.

The heart of it is section 2(1). It says the owner of a dog is liable for damages resulting from a bite or attack by the dog on another person or a domestic animal. In plain words, if a dog bites you or attacks you, the owner is on the hook for the harm that follows. You do not have to show that the owner broke some safety rule. The liability attaches to the fact of the bite or attack itself.

Then comes the part that surprises people. Section 2(3) says the owner's liability does not depend on knowledge of the dog's propensity, or on any fault or negligence on the owner's part. That single sentence removes the two things a bitten person would otherwise have to prove. You do not have to prove the owner knew the dog was dangerous. You do not have to prove the owner was careless. This is what lawyers mean when they call dog bite liability in Ontario strict liability. Prove the bite or attack, prove the harm it caused, and connect the dog to an owner, and the legal responsibility is established.

The same section 2(3) contains one important balance. It says the court must reduce the damages in proportion to the degree, if any, to which the injured person's own fault or negligence caused or contributed to the harm. So the strict liability is not a blank cheque. If you did something that helped cause the bite, your compensation can be reduced. We come back to that below, because it matters and because it is often overstated by the people who do not want to pay.

Two more pieces of DOLA are worth knowing. Where a dog has more than one owner, section 2(2) makes them jointly and severally liable, which means you can recover the full amount from any one of them and leave them to sort out shares among themselves. And section 2(4) lets an owner who has to pay recover a contribution from anyone else whose fault helped cause the harm. For an injured person, the practical effect is reassuring: the law is built to find someone who is responsible and make them pay, rather than to let responsibility slip through the cracks.

DOLA is specifically about bites and attacks by dogs. If a dog hurt you some other way, for example by darting into your path and causing a fall, you may still have a claim, but it would run through ordinary negligence rather than the strict liability rule, and that is a harder road. It is one of many reasons to have a lawyer look at exactly what happened.

Why do the first 48 hours matter so much?

If the law is this favourable, why fuss over the first two days? Because a strong legal rule still needs proof, and proof is fragile. Three clocks start ticking the moment a dog's teeth let go, and all three run against you.

The first clock is medical. Dog bites are dirty wounds. Even a small puncture can drive bacteria deep under the skin, and infections can set in within a day. Bites to the hand, over a joint, or on the face carry extra risk, and a wound that looks minor on the surface can hide crushed tissue or nerve damage underneath. Getting seen quickly is about your body first. It also happens to create the earliest and most trusted record of the injury.

The second clock is evidence. A wound starts healing immediately, so the dramatic early photograph can never be retaken. Torn clothing gets thrown out. The scene gets tidied. The dog gets moved. Witnesses who stopped to help walk away as strangers whose names you never got. Memories blur, and within days people are no longer sure whether the dog was on a leash, whether there was a warning sign, or exactly what was said. The first 48 hours are when this evidence is at its freshest and easiest to lock down.

The third clock is the legal deadline. In Ontario the basic limitation period to start a lawsuit is 2 years from the date you knew, or reasonably should have known, that you had a claim. Two years feels like a long time, and it is the outer limit, not a target. Claims are strongest when the groundwork is laid early, and weakest when someone waits, hoping the wound will heal and the problem will go away, only to find the evidence gone when they finally seek advice.

There is a fourth reason, quieter than the others. Insurance companies move fast. The dog owner's home insurer may contact you within days, friendly and sympathetic, offering to "take care of it" or asking for a quick statement or a signature. That early contact is not neutral. What you say and sign in the first 48 hours can be used to shrink or defeat your claim later. Knowing that changes how you handle those first calls.

The first 48 hours, step by step

Here is the detailed version of the checklist above. Work through it in roughly this order, but do not worry about being perfect. Even doing some of these steps puts you far ahead. Each one is framed around the two jobs it does: protecting you, and protecting your claim.

Step 1: Get to safety and get medical care

Your first job is to stop the harm. Get away from the dog, put a barrier between you and it, and do not try to punish or corner the animal, which can trigger another attack. If the bleeding is heavy, if the bite is to the face, neck, or hand, if the person bitten is a child or an older adult, or if you feel faint, call 911. For less severe wounds, wash the area with soap and running water, cover it, and get to a walk in clinic or emergency department the same day.

See a medical professional even if you think the wound is minor. There are two reasons. The medical reason is that dog bites frequently become infected, and a doctor may clean the wound properly, close it, prescribe antibiotics, update your tetanus protection, and assess whether you need treatment to prevent rabies. Puncture wounds and hand wounds in particular are often worse than they look. The legal reason is that the medical record created that day is the single most important document in a dog bite claim. It records the date, the cause, the location and depth of the wounds, and the first treatment. A gap between the bite and the first medical visit is one of the first things an insurer will point to, so getting seen promptly closes that door.

Keep every piece of paper. Discharge instructions, prescriptions, referrals, and receipts all matter. Follow the follow up instructions exactly, and go to every appointment. Missed appointments and ignored advice do not just slow your recovery; they hand the other side an argument that you were not really that hurt.

Step 2: Photograph and document everything

As soon as it is safe, and ideally before the wound is cleaned and dressed, take photographs. Photograph the bites from a few angles, with something for scale if you can. Then keep photographing over the following days and weeks as bruising blooms, stitches go in and come out, and scars form. A dog bite injury changes quickly, and a series of dated photos tells that story far better than words.

Do not stop at the wounds. Photograph the torn or bloodied clothing, the location where it happened, any leash, fence, gate, or "beware of dog" sign, and, if you can do so safely and from a distance, the dog itself. If there is a house or yard involved, capture that too. Most phones record the date and time automatically, which quietly turns each photo into timestamped evidence.

Write down what happened while it is fresh, the same day if you can. Note the date, the time, the exact place, what the dog was doing, whether it was leashed or loose, who was holding it, what was said, and how the bite happened. You will be astonished how fast these details fade, and a contemporaneous note carries real weight later.

Step 3: Identify the dog, the owner, and whoever was handling it

You cannot claim against someone you cannot name. Before you leave the scene, try to get the dog owner's full name, address, and phone number. Ask whether the dog is licensed and whether its rabies vaccination is up to date, and ask for the name of their home or tenant insurance company. Most dog bite claims are ultimately paid by the owner's home insurance, not out of their pocket, so those insurance details are gold.

Here is a point that trips people up, and it is where the law gets interesting. The person legally on the hook is not always the registered owner. Under DOLA, the person walking, minding, or otherwise in control of the dog when it bit you may also count as an "owner" you can claim against. So get the name and details of whoever actually had the dog, the dog walker, the pet sitter, the friend who was holding the leash, or the family member watching it that day, as well as the household the dog belongs to. We explain why below, but for now the rule of thumb is simple: identify everyone connected to that dog, not just the name on the licence.

If the dog ran off and you have no idea whose it is, do not give up on the claim. Note where it happened and which direction the dog went, ask neighbours and nearby businesses, and check for security or doorbell cameras in the area. Animal services can sometimes trace a dog from a licence tag or a description. A lawyer can help run these down.

Step 4: Get witness names and numbers

If anyone saw the attack or came to help, ask for their name and phone number before they leave. Independent witnesses are powerful because they have no stake in the outcome. Dog bite cases often come down to a dispute about small but crucial facts: was the dog loose or leashed, did you provoke it or were you just standing there, was there a warning. A neutral bystander who saw the whole thing can settle that dispute in your favour. People scatter quickly after an incident, so a name and a number captured in the first minutes can be worth a great deal months later.

Step 5: Report to animal services and public health

Report the bite to two places. The first is your municipal animal services or animal control office, which handles dangerous dog complaints and by law enforcement in your city or town. The second is your local public health unit. In Ontario, dog bites are investigated for rabies risk, and public health can require the dog to be confined and observed, usually for 10 days, to make sure it is healthy. You may be contacted as part of that process.

Reporting protects other people, because a dog that bit once may bite again, and the record can support measures to control a genuinely dangerous animal. It also protects your claim in a way many people miss. An official report made in the first days is independent proof that the bite happened, when it happened, and which dog was involved. If the owner later claims the whole thing was exaggerated or invented, a same week report to public health and animal services is hard to argue with. Ask how to get a copy of the report for your records.

Step 6: Keep the clothing and start a diary

Do not wash or throw away the clothing you were wearing. Torn, punctured, and bloodstained clothing is physical evidence of the force of the attack, and it can flatly contradict any later suggestion that the dog "just nipped" you. Put the items in a paper bag, unwashed, and set them aside.

At the same time, start a simple diary. Once a day, or every few days, jot down your pain level, what you could not do, appointments you attended, medications you took, sleep you lost, work you missed, and how the injury is affecting your mood and your daily life. A dog bite is not only a physical wound. Many people, and especially children, develop a lasting fear of dogs, anxiety about going outside, or distress about scarring. Courts compensate that psychological harm, but only if there is a record of it. Your diary is that record, written in real time rather than reconstructed from memory a year later.

Step 7: Watch what you say and sign, and get legal advice

In the days after a bite, expect a call from the dog owner or their insurance company. They may be kind and apologetic. They may offer to pay your first medical bill, or to settle the whole thing on the spot for a modest sum, or simply ask you to describe what happened "for their file." Be polite, but be careful. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other side's insurer, and you should not sign a release or accept a settlement before you understand what your claim is worth. A signed release can permanently end your right to compensation, even if your injury turns out to be far worse than it first appeared.

The same caution applies to social media. A cheerful photo posted while you are recovering can be lifted out of context and used to argue you were not really hurt. It is wise to keep the incident and your recovery off public feeds while a claim is live.

This is the point to call a lawyer. A personal injury lawyer can deal with the insurer for you, make sure the evidence is preserved, value the claim properly, and stop you from giving away far more than the price of a phone call. Most personal injury lawyers, including our firm, offer a free first consultation, so getting advice early costs you nothing.

Who counts as the "owner" you can claim against?

This is one of the most useful things to understand about Ontario dog bite law, because it often decides whether there is anyone worth suing. Under DOLA, the word "owner" is broader than the everyday meaning. The statute says "owner" includes a person who possesses or harbours the dog, and, where the registered owner is a minor, the person responsible for that child. So "owner" is not limited to the name on the dog licence. It reaches the person who had the dog in their possession or care.

Why does this matter to you? Because the person who had the dog when it bit you may be a dog walker, a pet sitter, a kennel or daycare, a friend, or a family member, and each of them may be an "owner" you can claim against. And because more than one person can be an owner at the same time, and joint owners are jointly and severally liable under section 2(2), a bitten person may have more than one defendant and more than one insurance policy to look to. In practice that improves the odds that there is real compensation available, rather than a responsible person with no money and no insurance.

The leading case: Wilk v. Arbour

The Ontario Court of Appeal explained how broad "owner" is in Wilk v. Arbour, 2017 ONCA 21. In that case a woman had taken her partner's Great Dane out for a walk. During the walk the dog had a seizure and went down an embankment, and as she tried to regain control of the panicked animal it bit her and she suffered a serious injury to her hand. She sued the dog's owner under DOLA. His answer was that because she was the one walking and controlling the dog at the time, she was herself an "owner," and one owner cannot sue another. She said she was only the dog walker, not an owner. So the court had to decide what "possesses" and "harbours" actually mean.

The Court of Appeal held that "possesses" in the definition of owner includes a person who is in physical possession and control of a dog just before it bites or attacks. Importantly, the court said this is not an exhaustive definition and that a rigid rule should be avoided, because the range of situations is endless; whether a particular person is an "owner" has to be assessed on the facts of the case. In short, the label on the licence is not the point. What counts is who had real possession and control of the dog.

For someone who has been bitten, the useful takeaways from Wilk are these. The person you can claim against may be whoever actually had the dog, not only the registered owner, which is exactly why Step 3 tells you to identify everyone connected to the animal. And because possession and control are what matter, it is worth gathering the facts about who was holding the leash, whose property it happened on, and who was caring for the dog, so a lawyer can identify every possible "owner" and every insurance policy in play.

The same case carries a caution that is worth being honest about. The very reason the issue arose in Wilk is that the broad definition can cut the other way: a person who is handling someone else's dog when it bites them may be treated as an "owner" and may find their DOLA claim complicated as a result. If you were bitten while walking, minding, or handling a dog that was not yours, that does not necessarily end your claim, but it is a situation where early legal advice is especially important, because there may be other ways to seek compensation.

Do you have to prove the dog bit someone before? The "one bite" myth

Many people believe that a dog gets "one free bite," meaning the owner is only responsible if the dog had bitten someone before and the owner knew about it. That idea comes from an old common law doctrine called scienter, a Latin word about the owner's knowledge of the animal's dangerous nature. It is one of the most persistent myths in this area, and in Ontario, for a claim under DOLA, it is simply wrong.

Section 2(3) of DOLA says in as many words that the owner's liability does not depend on knowledge of the dog's propensity. That means you do not have to prove the dog had ever shown aggression before, and you do not have to prove the owner knew it was dangerous. A first time bite by a dog with a spotless history is enough. This is a deliberate choice by the Legislature to make it easier for injured people to recover, and it is the single biggest reason DOLA claims are stronger than an ordinary negligence claim.

The contrast with negligence is instructive. In Wilk v. Arbour the Court of Appeal noted that to hold an animal's owner liable in ordinary negligence, "special circumstances" have to exist, and liability depends on whether the harm was reasonably foreseeable and the owner's conduct unreasonable. That is a real hurdle, and it is exactly the hurdle DOLA lets a bitten person skip for bites and attacks. So while an owner might escape a negligence claim by saying the dog had never done anything like this before, that defence does not work against a strict liability claim under DOLA. Do not let anyone, including an insurer, tell you that you have no case because the dog was "always so gentle." Under the Act, the dog's clean record is beside the point.

What if the bite was partly your fault?

People are often afraid to make a claim because they think they did something wrong. Maybe you reached out to pet the dog, stepped into a yard, or did not notice a sign. It is important to understand that in Ontario, partial fault does not usually destroy a dog bite claim. It can reduce it.

The rule is in the second half of section 2(3). After setting out strict liability, it says the court must reduce the damages in proportion to the degree, if any, to which the injured person's own fault or negligence caused or contributed to the harm. This is contributory negligence, and it works as a percentage reduction, not an on off switch. If a court decides the incident was, say, 20 percent your doing and 80 percent down to the dog, your damages are reduced by 20 percent and you still recover the other 80 percent. Being partly at fault is not the same as having no claim.

What sorts of things can count against you? Deliberately provoking or teasing the dog, ignoring a clear warning, trespassing where you had no business being, or acting in a way that a reasonable person would know was likely to trigger a bite. What usually does not count against you is ordinary, innocent behaviour: walking on a public sidewalk, greeting a dog whose owner said it was friendly, or being a young child who cannot be expected to read a warning. In fact, courts are generally slow to find meaningful contributory negligence against young children, which matters because children are among the most common dog bite victims.

The practical point is this. Do not talk yourself out of a claim because you feel partly responsible, and do not admit fault at the scene or to an insurer before you have advice. Whether your conduct legally reduces your damages, and by how much, is a judgment call that turns on the details. That is a question for a lawyer, not something to concede in the stressful minutes after an attack.

What is a dog bite claim worth in Ontario?

This is the question everyone eventually asks, and the honest answer is that it depends on the injury and its effect on your life. There is no fixed price for a bite. What the law does is sort the harm into categories, called heads of damages, and compensate each one. Understanding the categories helps you see why two bites that look similar on the skin can be worth very different amounts.

Here are the main heads of damages in a dog bite claim:

Two features of dog bite awards are worth flagging. First, scarring drives value, especially facial scarring, because a permanent, visible scar affects a person every day and often carries a heavy psychological cost. Second, Canadian law places a ceiling on pain and suffering damages. The Supreme Court of Canada capped these damages in the late 1970s, and with inflation the ceiling sits at roughly $465,000 to $470,000 today. That ceiling only comes into play in the most catastrophic cases. The great majority of dog bite awards are far below it, as the example below shows.

A real Ontario example: Moretto v. Nicolini-Femia

To move from theory to numbers, consider a decided Ontario case, Moretto v. Nicolini-Femia, 2017 ONSC 3945. The plaintiff was bitten on the face and left with a permanent scar on her cheek. The wound required about 10 sutures, she had steroid injections over a period of time as part of her treatment, and the scar affected her confidence and self esteem. The court assessed her damages under several of the heads above.

Use this as an illustration of how the pieces fit together, not as a price list. The court separated the physical injury from the psychological injury and valued each, then added a realistic amount for the future care the scar would require, such as laser treatment and ongoing sun protection. Your own claim could be higher or lower depending on the severity and location of the injury, the strength of the scarring, the psychological impact, your income loss, and your future treatment needs. What Moretto shows is that even a bite that leaves "just a scar" can be worth tens of thousands of dollars once the law properly accounts for the lasting physical and emotional harm.

A worked example: adding up a dog bite claim

Numbers become clearer with a worked example. This is a made up scenario, not a real client and not a promise of any result, but it uses realistic heads of damages so you can see how a claim is built.

Suppose a delivery driver, Priya, is bitten on the forearm by a loose dog while dropping off a parcel. She goes to the emergency department the same day, gets 8 stitches, misses 3 weeks of work, needs physiotherapy for a stiff wrist, and is left with a visible scar and a new nervousness around dogs on her route. Her claim might be assembled like this:

Now suppose the court finds that Priya was 10 percent at fault because she stepped past an open gate she should have noticed. Under section 2(3), her damages are reduced by that 10 percent:

Two lessons come out of this arithmetic. First, the biggest single number is almost always the general damages for pain, suffering, and scarring, which is why documenting the wound, the scar, and the emotional toll matters so much. Second, contributory negligence trims the award; it does not wipe it out. Even with a finding of partial fault, Priya recovers the large majority of her claim.

Illustrative examples

The following short scenarios are illustrations only. They are not real clients, and they are simplified to show how the rules in this guide play out. Every real case turns on its own facts and evidence.

Illustrative example 1: the neighbour's "friendly" dog. A child is visiting a neighbour and reaches out to pet the family's older dog, which has never bitten anyone. The dog snaps and bites the child's cheek, leaving a scar. The owner feels terrible and insists the dog "has never done that in 10 years." Under DOLA, the dog's clean history does not matter. Because liability does not depend on the owner knowing the dog was dangerous, the child has a strong claim, and the owner's home insurance would typically respond. Facial scarring on a child, with its long term physical and psychological effects, can be significant, as Moretto illustrates.

Illustrative example 2: bitten by a dog someone was minding. A jogger is bitten by a dog being walked by a professional dog walker while the registered owner is at work. The walker says "it's not my dog, talk to the owner," and the owner says "I wasn't even there." Under Wilk v. Arbour, both may be "owners" for the purposes of DOLA, because the walker had physical possession and control of the dog at the time and the household owns it. Identifying both, and both insurance policies, gives the jogger the best chance of full compensation.

Illustrative example 3: partly my fault. A man ignores a "beware of dog" sign, reaches over a fence to pet a dog he can see is agitated, and is bitten on the hand. He assumes he has no claim because he "should have known better." He may still recover. His conduct could reduce his damages for contributory negligence, perhaps substantially, but the owner remains strictly liable under DOLA, so the claim is reduced rather than eliminated. How much the reduction should be is a question for legal advice, not a reason to give up.

Illustrative example 4: the claim that got harder. A woman is bitten at a backyard barbecue, cleans up at home, throws out her torn shirt, does not see a doctor for 5 days because the wound "seemed fine," and never reports the bite. When the wound becomes infected and scars, she tries to make a claim. She still has one, but it is now harder: there are no early photos, no preserved clothing, no official report, and a 5 day gap in the medical record that the insurer uses to argue the injury was minor or unrelated. The law was on her side from the first second; the missing first 48 hours are what weakened her position.

What a dog bite claim is not: it is not treated like a car accident claim

People who have dealt with a car accident sometimes assume a dog bite claim works the same way, with a big deductible taken off the top and a "threshold" to cross before pain and suffering can be claimed. It does not, and this is good news for bitten people. Ontario's auto insurance rules, including the statutory deductible and the injury threshold, come from the Insurance Act and apply only to claims arising from the use or operation of an automobile. A dog bite has nothing to do with a car, so those rules do not touch it.

The difference is easiest to see side by side:

The row that matters most is the deductible. In a car accident case, the first $47,913.01 of a 2026 pain and suffering award is invisible to you; it is subtracted unless the award is large enough to make the deductible disappear. In a dog bite case there is no such deductible. Every dollar the court awards for your pain, suffering, and scarring is yours. The same goes for the threshold: a car accident plaintiff has to prove a permanent and serious impairment before claiming pain and suffering at all, while a dog bite victim does not. If you have heard about these auto insurance rules and worried they will eat your dog bite claim, you can set that worry aside.

What you can still claim, even if the situation is not perfect

Dog bite victims often disqualify themselves in their own minds. Here is the reassuring reality about several common worries.

Even if the bite was partly your fault, you can still claim, subject to a percentage reduction, as explained above. Even if the dog had never bitten anyone before, you can still claim, because a clean history is no defence under DOLA. Even if the owner is a friend, a family member, or a neighbour you do not want to hurt financially, a claim usually runs against their home insurance rather than their savings, so making a claim is not the personal attack it can feel like. Even if you did not get everything on the checklist done in the first 48 hours, you can still claim; a lawyer can often reconstruct evidence, and a partial record is far better than none.

Even if the wound has healed by the time you get advice, you can still claim, because the law compensates the pain you went through, the scar you are left with, and any lasting psychological effect, not just the open wound. And even if the person who was handling the dog was not the registered owner, you can still claim, because DOLA reaches the person who possessed or harboured the dog. Very few honest dog bite injuries are truly hopeless. The mistake is assuming they are and never asking.

Deadlines: how long do you have to sue for a dog bite in Ontario?

The core deadline is the basic limitation period under Ontario's Limitations Act, 2002. In general, you have 2 years from the date you knew, or reasonably ought to have known, that you had a claim to start a lawsuit. For most dog bites that date is the day of the attack, because the harm and its cause are obvious immediately. Miss the deadline and, barring an exception, the claim is gone no matter how strong it once was.

Children are the important exception, and they matter here because children are bitten so often. For a person under 18, the limitation clock generally does not start to run until they turn 18, which means a child who is bitten may have until their 20th birthday to sue in their own name. That does not mean waiting is wise. A parent or guardian can and usually should pursue a claim on the child's behalf much sooner, as a litigation guardian, while the evidence is fresh and while the child's future care needs, such as scar revision as they grow, can be properly assessed. A separate limitation period can apply to a parent's own related claim, so the safe course is always to get advice early rather than to rely on the minor's extended time.

There is one more timing point that is easy to forget. The 2 year limitation is the deadline to start a lawsuit, not a licence to do nothing for 2 years. The practical work of a strong claim, preserving evidence, reporting the bite, documenting the injury, and getting proper medical care, all belongs to the first days and weeks. The limitation period is the outer wall; the first 48 hours are the foundation.

How to protect your dog bite claim

Pulling it together, here is how you keep your claim as strong as the law allows. Think of this as the "protect the claim" version of the medical and safety steps above.

Get medical care the same day and follow every instruction, so there is no gap and no argument that you were not really hurt. Photograph the wounds early and keep photographing as they heal, and keep the torn, unwashed clothing. Identify everyone connected to the dog, the household and whoever was handling it, and get their insurance details. Collect witness names and numbers on the spot. Report the bite to animal services and public health, and keep copies. Keep a diary of pain, limitations, missed work, and emotional effects, and save every receipt. Stay off social media about the incident. Do not give a recorded statement to the owner's insurer, and do not sign a release or accept a settlement, until a lawyer has valued your claim. And get legal advice early, well inside the 2 year window, while everything can still be preserved.

Each of these steps closes off an argument the other side would otherwise make, and together they are the difference between a claim that settles for its real value and one that gets chipped away. None of them requires legal training. They just require knowing, in the first 48 hours, that they matter.

How VC Lawyers can help

A dog bite can leave you with real pain, a permanent scar, lost income, and a lasting fear that follows you every time you see a dog on the sidewalk. You should not have to fight the owner's insurance company on your own while you are trying to heal. At VC Lawyers, we help people who have been bitten or attacked by dogs in Ontario identify everyone who is legally responsible, preserve the evidence that proves what happened, value the full extent of the harm including scarring and psychological injury, and deal with the insurer so you do not have to.

We work on a contingency fee basis for personal injury clients, which means no fees unless we recover for you, and the first consultation is free. Contact VC Lawyers for a free consultation with a Toronto personal injury lawyer. The sooner you reach out, the more of the first 48 hours we can help you protect.

Information only

This article is general information about Ontario law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Every claim turns on its own facts and medical evidence, and the dollar figures change every year. For advice about your situation, speak with a lawyer.

Key terms explained

Dog Owners' Liability Act (DOLA): The Ontario statute that makes the owner of a dog liable for damages from a bite or attack. It is the main legal route for a dog bite claim in the province.

Strict liability: Responsibility that does not depend on proving fault or carelessness. Under DOLA, an owner is liable for a bite or attack even if they did nothing wrong and had no idea the dog was dangerous.

Scienter: An old common law doctrine, sometimes called the "one bite rule," that made an animal's owner liable only if they knew of the animal's dangerous tendency. DOLA removes this requirement for dog bite claims in Ontario.

Owner (under DOLA): More than the person named on a licence. It includes anyone who possesses or harbours the dog, such as a walker, sitter, or family member in control of it, and, where the registered owner is a child, the person responsible for that child.

Possess or harbour: To have physical possession and control of a dog, or some degree of care or control over it. The Court of Appeal in Wilk v. Arbour held that a person in possession and control of a dog just before a bite can be an "owner."

Contributory negligence: A reduction in your compensation to reflect the degree to which your own conduct helped cause the injury. It reduces a dog bite award by a percentage; it does not eliminate it.

General damages: Compensation for non financial harm, such as pain, suffering, scarring, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. In dog bite cases this is often the largest part of the claim.

Cost of future care: Money awarded for treatment and support you will need in the future, such as scar revision surgery, laser treatment, counselling, or ongoing skin protection.

Special damages: Your out of pocket expenses already incurred, such as prescriptions, dressings, physiotherapy, parking, and travel to appointments.

Family Law Act claim: A claim by close family members, such as a spouse, child, or parent, for the loss of the injured person's care, guidance, and companionship. It arises in more serious cases.

Limitation period: The legal deadline to start a lawsuit. For most dog bites in Ontario it is 2 years from the date of the bite, with a longer period for children.

Joint and several liability: Where a dog has more than one owner, each of them can be held responsible for the full amount, leaving them to sort out their shares between themselves.