pet connection

There are days when I wish I could rinse my brain out. I had several of them while working on my current column for MSNBC.com. I won’t sully your morning with the stories I heard–you probably are familiar with them already or have heard worse–suffice it to say that the column is about trends in animal cruelty laws.

For the past four years, the Animal Legal Defense Fund has ranked states based on the strength and quality, if you will, of their animal protection laws. Turns out you don’t want to be a pet in Kentucky, North Dakota, Hawaii,Idaho or Mississippi. It’s not that people in those states are cruel to animals, but their laws protecting animals are the weakest in the nation, based on ALDF’s criteria.

Where do they go wrong? The ALDF says for starters they don’t have good definitions or standards of care, they don’t require mental health evaluations or counseling for people convicted of neglect or cruelty, and cruelty, neglect and abandonment are considered misdemeanors, not felonies.

The organization looks at 14 different categories of animal protection laws to determine its rankings: general prohibitions, penalties, exemptions, mental health evaluations and counseling, protective orders, cost mitigation and recovery, seizure/impound, forfeiture and post-conviction possession, non-animal agency reporting of suspected animal cruelty, veterinarian reporting of suspected animal cruelty, law enforcement policies, sexual assault, fighting, and offender registration.

“What these states have in common is overall lack of meaningful laws in most of these areas: soft penalties or weak or nonexistent penalties; no legal tools to recover costs of care of abused animals that are housed in shelters; limited or no restrictions on animal ownership for people who are convicted of animal cruelty. These are all types of things that states in the upper tier have done or are doing,” says Stephan Otto, ALDF’s director of legislative affairs and author of the report.

So why should states spell out standards of care? Isn’t that a little nanny-stateish?

Otto says that states with care guidelines make it easier for law enforcement officials to determine whether a crime has been committed. When a state such as Kentucky simply defines cruelty as–among other things–failing to provide adequate food, drink, space or health care, well, those things can be a matter of opinion. In Vermont, on the other hand, the terms “living space,” “adequate food” and “potable water” are all defined. “Food” is not spoiled or contaminated and it’s of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the normal daily requirements for the condition and size of the animal. Oregon’s law notes that access to snow and ice do not qualify as access to potable water. Just in case you weren’t sure.

The good news is that people in those states are working to improve the laws. Otto says that throughout the country, people are supportive of strong laws to protect animals. One of them is Tiffani Frautschi, president of MS-FACT (Mississippi-Fighting Animal Cruelty Together). We talked yesterday about legislation introduced in Mississippi last month to make animal cruelty a felony. The bill has passed the state senate’s judiciary review committee and goes to the senate floor for a vote later this week.

“We definitely expect it to pass the senate,” Frautschi says. “We know that it’s going to be a fight in the house, but we think this is the first year this legislation has been introduced that we actually have a chance. There have been some horrendous cases in the last six months in Mississippi, just so many gruesome acts of violence against dogs and cats. And the mental health community has come out very strongly to back animal cruelty legislation as a way of finding these people before they escalate to violence against humans.”

Frautschi says one of the problems in getting legislation passed is that people don’t know that animal cruelty isn’t a felony.

“We went out and talked to more than 25,000 people and got over 25,000 signatures from Mississippi residents asking for a first-offense felony law for cruelty to dogs and cats and everyone was shocked that we didn’t already have this. No one knew.”

Agricultural interests opposed to the legislation cited “slippery slope” arguments, but Frautschi points out that Mississippi’s law against maliciously injuring livestock is already much stronger than that against maliciously injuring dogs and cats.

And there’s simple fear of change.

“I actually had someone say to me, ‘Well, if I hit a dog with my car, am I going to be a felon?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me? Right now, if you hit a dog with your car, do you get charged with a misdemeanor?’ I think there is just a lot of nervousness, and I think it’s like anything new, people are fearful and there are always groups out there who try to drive that fear. We’ve tried to do a lot of public relations work, talking to folks and saying ‘Hey, we aren’t looking to come after your agricultural enterprise and if a dog breaks into your chicken coop and is massacring your chickens, we aren’t going to be upset with you for doing something about that.’ “

Frautschi says the bill protects people as well as animals, citing research linking cruelty to animals with violence toward people.

“People have a right to be protected from violent individuals. If you can light a dog on fire, you should not work in a school. They shouldn’t work in schools, they shouldn’t work in nursing homes, they shouldn’t work in hospitals, and a felony conviction is what will ensure that. We think it’s time for Mississippi to do the right thing.”

In case you were wondering, the five best states for animal protection are Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Oregon and California. If you want to check your state’s laws, take a look here.

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