The owners who left a dog chained up on the side of a highway before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida last week have been identified by authorities — and the state is pursuing animal cruelty charges against them.

“We had somebody decide as Hurricane Milton approached that it would somehow be a good thing to take his dog and chain it to a post on the interstate,” Governor DeSantis said on Tuesday, adding that when Florida Highway Patrol troopers rescued the dog, it was in “distress” and “very rattled.”

Video footage of the dog rescue last week went viral and sparked outrage as the dog was seen abandoned and tied up to a fence pole along Interstate 75 hours before the hurricane was expected to hit. The dog appeared to be distressed and was barking as water pooled up around him.

After his rescue, the dog was transported to foster care in Tallahassee with the Leon County Humane Society and renamed Trooper “because of how much he’s been through and to honor those who saved him,” the rescue group said. 

“You don’t just tie up a dog and have them out there for a storm,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I’m proud to announce that authorities have identified the dog’s former owners and state attorney Suzy Lopez is now pursuing animal cruelty charges against the individual,” he said, adding that he was following through on his earlier promise to hold people responsible for animal cruelty. 

The governor had previously responded on X to the footage by saying that it was “cruel for anyone to leave a dog tied to a post in the middle of an oncoming storm” and promised that the state “will hold anyone who mistreats pets accountable.” 

“I hope they find the person who did it and that person should have the book thrown at them,” Mr. DeSantis said in a press conference last week. “We’ve got dogs that are going to be helping in the storm, these police working dogs, they’re great canines. So we don’t have tolerance for that in Florida, I thought it was outrageous that somebody would do that.” 

The state attorney pursuing the charges, Ms. Lopez, confirmed on Tuesday that “an arrest has been made in this case.”

“Trooper’s former owner is going to be facing aggravated animal cruelty charges,” she wrote on X. “We take this crime very seriously and this defendant will face the consequences of his actions.”

In a statement on Thursday, the rescue group providing foster care to Trooper said that abandoning him on the highway “was completely unacceptable and endangered not only his life, but could have endangered others by causing a hazard on an already busy and stressful evacuation route.”

“We can’t imagine the situation that ended with him tied to this pole and left without any hope,” the statement said. “It’s hard even to think about how scared he must have been as cars raced by, the water rose to his belly, and the storm clouds darkened.”