New federal law on animal cruelty, Ga. law

For those who dote on their pets, give them special Thanksgiving treats and buy Christmas gifts for them, animal cruelty is a hard thing to understand.

North Georgia Animal Alliance volunteer Dave Mayo says the worst case of animal cruelty he has seen locally was a dog from LaFayette that had both eyes put out. “It was just horrible,” he says.

“Even if someone doesn’t love animals,” says NGAA president Valerie Hayes, “there is no excuse for abusing them. How someone can intentionally injure or kill an animal is beyond comprehension.”

On Nov. 25, a new federal law was signed by President Donald Trump adding some muscle to the battle against animal cruelty.

The law, titled “The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act” (PACT), sponsored by Rep. Theodore Deutch, D-Florida, District 22, and co-sponsored across party lines by 300 more members of Congress, addresses the most extreme forms of animal abuse, referred to in the bill as “crushing,” including the sharing of videos portraying animal abuse.

The bill states: “the term ‘animal crushing’ means actual conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury…”

The bill allows for fines and for imprisonment of up to seven years upon conviction. The bill lists “exceptions:”

“IN GENERAL. — This section does not apply with regard to any conduct, or a visual depiction of that conduct, that is —