Bill To Protect Pets In Domestic Violence Situations

Bill To Protect Pets In Domestic Violence Situations

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In many instances, domestic violence situations can claim more than one victim.

There are laws to protect children and the target of the abuse, but what about the pets in the home? A new law is targeted at protecting even more innocent victims, NBC 4's Paul Stelzer reported.

Jasper is part of the Capital Area Humane Society's Safe Haven. He was rescued from a family that was ripped apart by domestic violence.

"It's a wonderful example of a member of the family who needed a safe place to be while their family sorts through their troubles," said Jodi Buckman, of CAHS. "We know that pets are members of our families. They deserve the same protection of other members of the family."

That's why the humane society supports House Bill 418, which would allow protection orders to include dogs like Jasper, making it illegal for abusers to have contact with their pets.

http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.apx.-content-articles-CMH-2008-05-30-0029.html

That shelters for battered women should partner with the Humane Society and Pet Rescue groups to find foster homes for the animals of domestic abuse survivors - until they can get their own place. Of course, many of these places are already overwhelmed.

This is a good bill to see.

work with area vets to provide temporary emergency shelter for pets because Humane Shelters are usually too fully occupied to take on the additional responsibility. We did, however, have a visitation program where a HS volunteer brought in a young animal or two for the residents at our DV shelter to enjoy for a couple of hours. Animals at the shelter need to be handled often to be more 'people friendly' (and therefore adoptable) and the residents got so much from the contact with animals.

which we would pull out and make calls until we found someone to emergency foster. usually only took a couple calls to find a temp place, and time is of the essence-there are some sick f*cks out there.

sadly, too often families are on the run too much or can't afford a place that takes pets so the foster pet often becomes permanent or taken to a no-kill shelter. Needless to say the children were especially heartbroken to leave their pets but at least everyone had a safer home.

I use to work at a domestic violence shelter and a little known fact is one of the biggest signs a person will become physically abusive is how they treat pets. Rarely is there a perp that has not abused his/her dog or cat.

If you ever get into a relationship and your significant other starts to abuse an animal run as fast as you can to get out of that situation before its too late.

Except me. I feed them too many tweats.

http://home.earthlink.net/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=&target=tlx_new

Once when my ex flipped like a pancake, I wasn't there to take the brunt. He had my car towed, he had my dog and cat impounded and he destroyed all of my property. My dear cat Patty was on death row when I finally found her. I'm all for whatever can help families dealing with that stuff.

This is a great idea. :thumbsup:

Will have to google around. If not, there should be. Can't have hick laden Ohio (where I am from) leading the way on this!

Here is the bill:

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0351-0400/sb_353_bill_20070220_introduced.html

"Existing law authorizes a court to issue an ex parte order enjoining a party from engaging in specified acts against another party, including threatening or harassing that party, and, in the discretion of the court, against other named family or household members. A violation of this court order constitutes contempt of court, which is punishable as a misdemeanor.

This bill would additionally authorize the court to order that the petitioner be granted the exclusive care, custody, or control of any animal owned, possessed, leased, kept, or held by either the petitioner or the respondent or a minor child residing in the residence or household of either the petitioner or respondent. The bill would further authorize the court to order the respondent to stay away from the animal and forbid specified acts with respect to that animal. The bill would require the Judicial Council, by July 1, 2009, to modify the criminal and civil court forms consistent with these provisions. The bill would also include specified findings and declarations."

Also for signing info:

http://www.hsus.org/legislation_laws/state_legislation/state-legislation-list.html?state=california

The courts are overflowing and our families are treading water right now.

as a control tactic. While I think this bill is wonderful, it doesn't mean much when court order enforcement is not mandatory.

I mean, if it is, the bill's a good idea but I've never heard of this scenario before.

and, indeed, there have been plenty of cases of abusers taking out their violence on the nearest living thing in the home besides the object of their violence, and that is most likely animals. This can include killing them, abusing them, etc.

This bill's a fantastic idea then.

First, there are more people with companion animals than with children in this country. Second, abusers aren't brave people, and they will only abuse those who they feel can't fight back, its a power trip for most of them, and most breeds of dogs, and all breeds cats, are smaller and physically weaker than humans, on average, and humans make use of weapons as well, the fact is that abuse of animals seems to be symptomatic of abuse of either children or spouses, one of the warning signs, so to speak.

On that last note, this is part of the reason why I believe most animal abuse laws, in general, are far too lenient. The problem is that many people who abuse others usually start with animals, and then move onto humans, making animal abuse laws stricter, with much larger penalties, would hopefully alleviate this, and in the cases of children, they should be required to go into therapy, possibly even be committed if a history of animal abuse is present.

One of my hobbies is criminology and one of the warning signs that keeps cropping up for serial murderers especially and violent criminals generally is a history of animal abuse, usually starting during adolescence.

for some people, whether its an actual physical problem with their brain, or some type of psychological trauma, it seems to lead to all sorts of pathologies in which they simply cannot empathize with any other living thing. As such they would be the only truly pure selfish individual, without a capability for feeling guilt, they can take out their rage and anger in a violent manner against other living things, and not feel consequences for such actions.

Normal people simply don't act that way, we are social creatures, and as such, empathy is essential to develop in order to interact with ourselves and other species in a productive manner. Hell, this was necessary for our species to develop civilization in the first place, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.

This is a big reason why I hope we can catch such anti-social and violent behavior as early as possible, for, while the jury is still out as to whether empathy is an innate instinct or a learned behavior, we should assume its a combination of both. Indeed, psychopathic behavior such as I described is fortunately rare, for obvious reasons, but we should concentrate our resources on those we can most help, so to prevent the behavior from escalating later in life.

Obviously, that's an important factor but, for example, my youngest brother is autistic and a basic consequence of that is the inability to feel empathy. Yet, it would only become a danger when it's combined with other factors.

I would agree with trying to get such kids into therapy early though. Even if they can't be taught empathy (and some can't, as mentioned), they can be taught the boundries of acceptable behaviour.

Why? Because the spouse and kids were in a safe house (which didn't allow pets) and the only way the abuser had left to hurt them was by hurting the pet they loved.

I also know of a parent who used to threaten their child with harming the cat they loved. A husband who gave his wife's cat a concussion because she was late home from work. An adult son who threatened to burn his mother's pets alive while the mother was at work if she reported his hitting her. And these are just a few of the ones I know of.

Yeah. I believe it's pretty common.

Since I have a pretty low opinion of humanity, I tend to find cruelty to animals more upsetting and... I don't have words. I mean, I look at our two cats (both strays we adopted) and I just can't imagine hurting either of them. Hell, if it wasn't for them, I'd probably be dead by now (best treatment for depression I've found yet).

just a bit of "sport" to you, eh? :eyes:

:rofl:

might be.

It just rubs me the wrong way.

:shrug: :hide:

abused. Like the people are LESS innocent. Like I said, it just bothers me a bit.

I read "even more" to mean "additional victims" rather than "more innocent than original victims".

where one of the Vets had to operate on a family dog that was stabbed during a domestic fight between a Husband and Wife. The two had been fighting and the Husband decided to take out his anger on the Wife's dog, stabbing it in the shoulder.

Thankfully the dog recovered and was removed by the Denver Humane Society for its own protection. Some people can be so cruel.

I think it is about time that there is a law such as this to protect the poor animals caught up in these terrible situations.

This is a wonderful idea, sadly needed, and it helps to continue the progress of animal law being premised on the animal as an injured victim, and not as the archaic treatment only as a monetary loss to the human, as a piece of property. As we know, if the spouse/children/elderly parents, for example, are being violated and attacked by the abuser, then you know the animal is, too. Almost all abuse cases that go to court, tell of attacks against the animal, too.

Animal rights laws being strengthened, also helps the increased standing of all victims, as victims. You may recall that the very first case ever, of child abuse, was brought by the New York American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, on the pretext that being a mammal, the child was an animal, too, after the ASPCA had established the first animal protection laws in the country, during the 1850s, I think it was. (So much for "animal rights takes away from human concerns.") I know that when I used to volunteer as a dog-walker at a shelter, before gas got too expensive, sometimes as we were walking along, I would have to cough or clear my throat, and you could instantly tell the dogs who had been abused. I would make the ordinary sound, whatever it was, and certain dogs would drop completely to the ground, flat on the ground as if they had been shot, and cower, shivering, and sometimes look up and back at me, with sheer terror in their eyes. I learned to be very quiet, slow and gentle, because of these traumatized dogs. I also at those moments fucking hated people.