This bill is offered by Senators Tedesco and O’Mara. There is no “same as” bill in the Assembly.
Current law makes over-driving, overloading, torturing, cruelly beating, unjustifiably injuring, maiming, mutilating or killing any animal a Class A misdemeanor. The bill takes cats and dogs out of that. Now I assume the intent of doing this was to elevate the above abuses, when done to a cat or dog, to felony status. Unfortunately, I did not find any language in the bill where it said what those abuses, when done to a cat or dog, would constitute or what punishment would apply to those cases.
Also, the bill provides that failure to properly feed or house a companion animal ( a dog or cat) is elevated from violation to felony. Fines would rise from the low hundreds of dollars to up to five thousand dollars. Prison sentences of up to two years would become possible. Multiple offenses are possible arising out of failure to address deficiencies in kennel facilities in timely manner.
In my view, responsible breeders make it their practice to properly house their animals and to properly provide food and water at the proper times. For breeders owning just a few animals, probably this would mean the animals would share the breeder’s quarters. For breeders having more than a few animals, proper housing would likely involve a kennel facility with heat, air, lighting, and maybe plumbing too. There would be outside runs or fenced-in paddock areas. Proper feeding would mean feeding twice per day with water constantly available. Thus, this bill should not greatly concern the responsible breeder because their standards more than comply with those of the bill. I do have some commentary however on the bill. This is listed below:
- The bill does not indicate how over-driving, overloading, etc are to be punished in the case of companion animals. Absent specifics in the bill, it looks like one gets a free ride for doing these things to companion animals.
- Bumping the offense from violation status to felony status seems excessive to me. On the other hand, $100 to $250 fines do seem overly lenient and I wouldn’t quarrel with raising them. Perhaps a doubling or tripling of them would have been the more appropriate remedy.
- With potential jail sentences on the table, there will be bail hearings and possible pretrial confinement. In view of that, the language concerning return of seized animals seems overly simple.
- In the same vein, the language concerning treating each day beyond 72 hours after being charged that a deficiency in housing is permitted to exist as a separate offense seems like “piling on.” The accused may be in jail for more than that amount of time before release. Some accused may not get bail. I do note the current law contains a similar provision, but no provisions for jail.
- Under the current law money spent on kennel repairs can, at the judge’s discretion, be deducted from the fine. One might infer from this that the thrust of the law is to guide people toward the better treatment of animals; not the harsh extraction of their money. The rewrite appears to turn the law from benevolent guidance of people towards better behavior to the vengeful punishment of them.