President Trump implemented a federal law for animal cruelty however we need to go further.
Our animal rescues and streets are being overrun with animals that are abandoned or abused and unfortunately that means many animals are being euthanized.
Currently animal cruelty is a felony but anyone convicted of animal cruelty (includes wrongfully killing a healthy, non threatening animal outside of hunting permits) should receive no less than 36 months in prison.
Severe animal neglect and/or abandonment should be a minimum of 12 months in prison.
Animal breeders need to be limited to no more than 3 litters and must register for a license for each litter or they shall receive a minimum of a $5000 fine. After they have maxed out their litters they must show proof of spay or neuter within 6 months of their final registration or receive up to a $20000 fine.
Government agencies/employees shall not euthanize a rescue animal or pet unless there is an immediate danger or will be charged for animal cruelty.
Create a national animal registry that shows the name, address, dates of adoptions or surrenders for every person adopting or surrendering an animal.
If surrendering a pet a person must show burden of hardship. If they do not their names are put on a national list and they may not adopt or purchase and animal for a minimum of 5 years.
Illegally and/or intentionally trafficking any animal for the intent of compensation is at minimum a $500000 fine and 36- 60 months of prison.
There are state and federal laws in place but the problem has been enforcing them and catching the people doing the deeds. Dog fighting is rampant because they can’t be caught or resources aren’t going toward that. They hide the animals in forests so you can’t see them as well. This is animal cruelty along with puppy mills that have always been an issue and I see that getting cleaned up because of the FDA et al getting cleaned up along with the AKC who promotes this for purebred dogs. Just like the tethering law in my state, nothing was enforced and they finally had to pass legislation for tethering being illegal to get a handle on it which is what we wanted in the first place.
What goes along with this is affordable spaying and neutering of dogs/cats to prevent overpopulation. Been dealing with and working with this for decades and nothing ever gets fixed even with legislation because it’s not being enforced. Way too many people’s dogs have litters of pups and take the pups to the shelter yet refuse to bring in the female to be spayed. Also there are tons of feral cat colonies that are rampant in many states.
We are getting into less government so who is going to control all of this? It does need to be more on the state level, not federal. Not sure I agree with all the prison in all of this because of what is coming down the road. I believe there needs to be behavior changes more than anything and if there is financial assistance coming, this will help with much this as well. This old 3D behavior isn’t going to fly in 5D and will be changing as more people wake up and open their hearts.
I want to see, people that chain their pets or leave them in cages be charged with felonies. As we try to help animals that we see tied up for month’s to years with no love, no exercise, food or water we are shut down because states allow chained dogs and they dont take our calls seriously because they have to power to make it worth the laws time. Ive seen puppys starved to death, cats starved to death and no one will help them. Please make it to where one call will get them proper help they need. Please make it a felony for them to ever own animals again and if they do, they get prison time. Please help… we hate seeing them suffer.
@MollCook I wish all states had laws to protect animals but unfortunately many do not nor are they inclined to enforce the federal laws that are already in place. Per many officers the penalties for the crime are not worth the effort to enforce the laws.
We all understand that minimizing federal government doesn’t necessarily mean all government goes away. It’s just about removing the unnecessary waste and overreach. We just restructure the organizations that are supposed to uphold the few federal laws that are already in place for animal protection so they can be effective without the overreach and waste.
As far as behavioral changes, that won’t happen without training and for issues like animal cruelty people won’t change their behavior without severe consequences.
I feel sexually assaulting an animal or torture of any kind like dragging it behind a vehicle , beating it or setting the animal on fire should get the highest felony possible. Any abuse towards animals needs to have a felony attached.