Dear Editor,

Here is a clip from an article in the Des Moines Register.

Don’t fool yourselves in thinking this doesn’t happen in your home town. It does! I have personally, out of my own pocket provided fencing for an entire yard or fencing for a kennel as well as a food & water bowl & a dog house for dogs on the ends of chains. Mayor Jim Mueller if Pella is aware of this & yet I have seen no changes come about in Pella.

Dogs are companion animals. If you are not going to keep them as a companion don’t get one!

In addition if you see something SAY something!! The animals don’t have a voice!

The Animal Legal Defense Fund ranks each U.S. state and Canadian territory based on laws protecting animals from fighting and other cruelty. Iowa’s laws fall to 49th place, just above Kentucky.

The fund reviewed more than 4,000 pages of statutes to compile its 2015 list. It found Iowa lacked the ability to charge animal abusers with felony neglect or abandonment, though peace officers can charge offenders with felony cruelty and fighting.

However, the fund found evidence that Iowa was doing something to affect positive change.

“The newest report reveals an encouraging trend toward legislation allowing animals to be included in protective orders,” according to a news release. “These laws are absent from most bottom-ranking states, but Iowa does have such a law on the books.”

“Protective orders are crucial for removing both human and animal victims from the cycle of domestic violence, because human victims are often afraid to leave their pets behind,” Stephen Wells, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said in the release. “We applaud those states that recognize the clear link between violence towards humans and animals by allowing judges to include animals in domestic violence protective orders – and we hope other states continue to follow suit.”

Illinois apparently has the best animal protection laws of all states surveyed followed by Oregon, Maine, California and Michigan.

Amy De Jong

Pella

kelsey Winkey

Parkersburg