By Andi Elliott

Just wondering… what does it take to get animal cruelty charges filed in Jefferson County?

I can tell you what it doesn’t take. It doesn’t take allowing your dog with multiple broken legs and laying in your yard for almost 5 days without medical care. It doesn’t take half starving your horses winter after winter until the horses are stunted. And for sure, it doesn’t take throwing a Chihuahua puppy against the wall and breaking its shoulder.

The 7 hounds in Menan will tell you that though they were starved to mere skeletons… it wasn’t enough for animal cruelty charges to be filed until public pressure forced authorities to act. Ask the old horse who made it through one more winter and come spring, looked like “hide stretched over bones”. That wasn’t enough. When she could no longer stand…that wasn’t enough either.

According to Idaho Codes Chapter 25-3511…it takes “allowing animals to needlessly suffer”. It takes a veterinarian’s statement of condition. But also, it takes a sheriff who will enforce the law. It takes county commissioners who refuse to look the other way. Sometimes it takes an irate public.

I have learned that you can have “the law”, and a vet’s statement”, and you can have incomprehensible cruelty but what it really takes is a sheriff with compassion. One who is willing to utilize the resources offered for help. But above all, it takes a sheriff who realizes that he may be the only hope to end an animal’s suffering.

Andi Elliott
Hamer, ID
For the Love of Pets Foundation
President
Petango.com/FTLOP

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