If your dog bites someone in Colorado, you can expect three things to happen more or less at once: the victim will likely have a civil claim against you for their injuries, your dog will be quarantined for 10 days to rule out rabies, and depending on how badly the person was hurt, you could face criminal charges and a court order controlling how you keep the dog from here on. How serious each piece gets depends on the injury, where the bite happened, and whether your dog has a history.
Handle the First Few Hours Carefully
Make sure the person who was bitten gets medical attention. Bites that look minor can turn into infections or reveal deeper tissue damage over the next few days, and a victim who ends up in surgery later will remember whether you helped at the scene.
Then cooperate with reporting and quarantine. Colorado law requires animal bites to be reported to local health authorities under Section 25-4-603, and in practice the treating physician usually makes that report to the local public health department or animal control agency. Denver, for example, routes reports through Denver Animal Protection, which coordinates with public health.1City and County of Denver. Animal Bites Provide your contact information and your dog’s vaccination records when asked.
Document what happened on your own too. Note where the bite occurred, what the victim was doing in the moments before, whether anything provoked the dog, and the names of any witnesses. If a lawsuit follows months later, these details fade fast from memory and matter enormously to the outcome.
Call your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance company promptly. Most policies require timely notice of a potential claim, and a delayed call can give the insurer a reason to deny coverage later.
The 10-Day Rabies Quarantine
Any dog that bites a person has to be quarantined for a 10-day observation period, regardless of vaccination status.2Weld County. Rabies Prevention and Control Policy – Management of Domestic Dogs, Cats and Ferrets Involved in Human Bites Depending on local animal control policies and the circumstances, the quarantine can happen at a shelter, a veterinary clinic, a kennel, or at your home. Home quarantine requires the dog to stay confined to your property for the entire period. Either way, the costs are yours.
Refusing the standard quarantine makes things worse, not easier. CDC guidance notes that if an owner declines to confine and observe the dog for 10 days, the alternative is a strict four-month quarantine.3Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Information for Veterinarians – Rabies
Civil Liability for the Victim’s Injuries
Colorado has a strict liability statute for serious dog bite injuries at Section 13-21-124. If your dog bites someone who is lawfully on public or private property and the bite causes serious bodily injury or death, you are automatically liable for the victim’s economic damages.4Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13-21-124 – Civil Actions Against Dog Owners Strict liability means it doesn’t matter whether you knew your dog was aggressive or had ever bitten before. If the injury is serious enough, you owe.
Economic damages under the strict liability statute include medical bills, lost wages, and future earning losses. They don’t include pain and suffering, emotional distress, or compensation for disfigurement. That split surprises a lot of owners, because the most visible consequences of a bad bite are the ones the strict liability statute won’t pay for.
“Serious bodily injury” borrows its definition from Colorado’s criminal code and covers injuries involving a substantial risk of death, serious permanent disfigurement or a substantial risk of it, protracted loss or impairment of a body part or organ, broken bones or fractures, and second- or third-degree burns. A deep puncture that heals cleanly usually doesn’t qualify. A bite that fractures a child’s forearm or requires reconstructive surgery almost always does.
If the injury doesn’t rise to that level, the victim isn’t blocked from suing. They can still bring a negligence claim, but they have to prove you knew or should have known the dog had dangerous tendencies and failed to take reasonable precautions. The flip side: a negligence case puts non-economic damages back on the table, meaning pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life. In practice, the biggest dog bite awards often come from this path, because non-economic damages can dwarf the medical bills.
Defenses That Can Shut Down or Reduce a Claim
The strict liability statute has several built-in defenses.
Trespass is the clearest one. If the person bitten was unlawfully on public or private property, strict liability doesn’t apply.4Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13-21-124 – Civil Actions Against Dog Owners There’s also a posted-sign defense: if the bite happened on your property and you had clearly visible “No Trespassing” or “Beware of Dog” signs, the statute doesn’t reach you. Mail carriers, law enforcement, and people on routine errands generally aren’t treated as trespassers even if they’re on your property uninvited.
Provocation is another defense. If the victim was teasing, tormenting, or physically provoking the dog, that can defeat or reduce the claim. The standard looks at whether a reasonable person would expect the behavior to provoke a dog, not whether the victim meant to.
Police and military dogs acting in the line of duty are exempt, and veterinarians, groomers, and dog trainers bitten while doing their jobs generally can’t recover under the statute as long as they weren’t warned about known dangerous behavior.
Criminal Charges
Owning a dangerous dog that injures someone is a crime under Section 18-9-204.5, and the charges scale with the harm:5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-9-204.5
- Bodily injury: Class 2 misdemeanor, up to 120 days in jail and a fine up to $750.6Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-1.3-501 – Misdemeanors Classified – Penalties
- Serious bodily injury: Class 1 misdemeanor, up to 364 days in jail and a fine up to $1,000.6Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-1.3-501 – Misdemeanors Classified – Penalties
- A second or subsequent serious bodily injury by the same dog: Class 6 felony.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-9-204.5
- Death: Class 5 felony.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-9-204.5
The criminal statute uses its own definition of “bodily injury,” covering severe bruising, muscle tears, or lacerations requiring professional medical treatment, as well as any injury needing corrective or cosmetic surgery.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-9-204.5 That bar sits lower than the civil “serious bodily injury” standard, so criminal charges can attach even when the civil strict liability statute wouldn’t.
Dangerous Dog Orders
A conviction under the dangerous dog statute brings mandatory requirements that stick as long as you keep the dog. You have to confine it in an escape-proof enclosure, keep it on a leash whenever it’s outside that enclosure, and post a conspicuous warning sign. A second or subsequent offense adds a muzzle requirement any time the dog is outside the enclosure.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18-9-204.5
If the court finds you knew about the dog’s dangerous tendencies before the bite, it can order the dog euthanized by a licensed veterinarian or shelter at your expense.4Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 13-21-124 – Civil Actions Against Dog Owners Violating any part of a dangerous dog order carries additional criminal penalties. This is where many owners get into compounding trouble: the first bite produces an order, containment or muzzling slips, and a second incident turns a misdemeanor situation into felony territory.
Insurance and Where the Money Actually Comes From
In most civil claims, your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance pays. Standard policies include liability coverage for dog bites and usually cover both the settlement or judgment and the cost of defending the lawsuit.
The exclusions are where owners get caught out. Some insurers exclude specific breeds they classify as high-risk. Others won’t cover a dog with a prior bite on record. If one of those exclusions applies to you, the claim comes straight out of your pocket. Filing a claim can also push your premium up at renewal, and some insurers will decline to renew.
Severe bite claims routinely climb into six figures once surgery, scarring, and lost income are added up. A homeowner’s policy with $100,000 or $300,000 in liability coverage may not be enough. A personal umbrella policy sits above the homeowner’s or renter’s policy and picks up the gap between your underlying limit and the actual damages.
If You Rent, Your Landlord May Also Be Sued
The injured person can sometimes bring the landlord into the case, but only under specific conditions. They generally have to show the landlord knew the dog was dangerous and had the legal power to require the tenant to remove the dog or move out. A landlord who learns a tenant’s dog has bitten or threatened someone and does nothing is the classic fact pattern. A landlord with no reason to suspect the dog was dangerous usually has no exposure.
How Long the Victim Has to Sue
Colorado’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two years from the date of injury under Section 13-80-102. After that, the court will almost certainly dismiss the case. For victims who are minors, the clock generally doesn’t start until the child turns 18, which pushes the deadline into early adulthood.
From the owner’s side, this means a bite isn’t necessarily behind you just because months have gone by with no lawyer’s letter. Two years is a long window, and many claims aren’t filed until the victim has finished treatment and knows the full cost of what happened.