Animal shelters are warning dog owners in Pennsylvania about a new law intended to protect dogs from the cold that includes penalties up to jail time. Owners can face charges for leaving dogs outside in freezing temperatures without adequate shelter for more than 30 minutes under Libre’s Law, passed last spring by Pennsylvania state lawmakers.
The enactment fortified Pennsylvania’s creature pitilessness laws, including commanding that proprietors relinquish their pets to a safe house in the event that they are sentenced for maltreatment. Punishments for a synopsis offense incorporate fines extending from $50 to $750 and up to 90 days in prison, while proprietors accused of a third-degree lawful offense can confront fines up to $15,000 and up to seven years in jail.
The law was named after a Boston terrier found gaunt and seriously sick at a Lancaster County cultivate. Libre, now completely recouped, went to the marking of the new creature remorselessness law by Pennsylvania Gov. With winter weather on the way, Pennsylvania animal shelters are spreading the word about the cold-weather provisions of the new law.
“Your doghouse that you have should keep them dry. If it rains and that freezes, that’s awful. Please make sure that they can get out of the elements and they can get into the dog house and not actually be rained on. Have it raised off the ground if you can,” Jennifer Vanderau, communications director for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter, told NBC4.
“This is a monumental change for those dogs that were just left out tied to a tree basically a lawn ornament at that point,” Kristen Tullo, Pennsylvania director of the Humane Society of the United States, told the station. A cellphone video of a dog shivering in the cold prompted passage of a similar law in February in Washington, D.C., but those restrictions expired after 90 days.