To any pet owner, the conclusion is no surprise. The truth is, regardless of their cognitive ability, we should respect dogs and all animals simply because they are other living beings. Since I am a lawyer by day, this prompted me to look up the laws on animal cruelty in my home state, New Jersey. The ASCPA makes every state's animal cruelty laws easily accessible at https://www.aspca.org/fight-cruelty/advocacy-center/state-animal-cruelty-laws.
In New Jersey, there is a legal penalty for a person who shall "torment, torture, maim, hang, poison, unnecessarily or cruelly beat, cruelly abuse, or needlessly mutilate a living animal or creature . . ."
Reading the list of punishable acts above, one would think there would be at least significant jail time for such horrific atrocities. Certainly we do not want a person who would do such things, whether to a human or an animal, free in society.
Right? Wrong.
The punishment is "a sum of not less than $1,000 and not more than $3,000." This is just wrong. It should be beyond question that any person who is evil enough to torture, needlessly mutilate, beat, etc, a helpless and innocent creature should be in jail - not paying a paltry fine. The laws need to be changed. Familiarizing myself with these inadequate laws has only strengthened my conviction to help pups, including to work towards a change in these laws so that offenders are appropriately punished.
After all, who could ever be mean to this little one?
Link to the MNN article: http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/dogs-have-capacity-for-emotion-study-finds
See the NJ law at https://www.animallaw.info/statute/nj-cruelty-consolidated-cruelty-statutes#s26
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