Assemblyman: Hands Off that Dog!

The following is appeared on the Maine Legislative Canine list:


FG/CH News A division of the New York Times

August 4, 2009, 4:35 pm

Assemblyman: Hands Off that Dog!
By Sarah Maslin Nir
http://tinyurl.com/assemblyman-ahs-Aug6
Let's just put a name on it right now: The Laika Law.

Laika, the Husky "dog-napped" by a well-meaning passerby from the front of a Fort Greene shop where she was tied last week - and since found - has inspired a new bill that would make dog-napping a crime.

Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, who represents part of Fort Greene, wants to make sure pet-napping is taken seriously by the law, said his media coordinator, Amy Z. Cleary.

Under current law, stealing a dog is treated the same as stealing a VCR. That shouldn't be, Ms. Cleary said. Society, she said, has evolved to the point where a pet is considered a member of a family, and Mr. Lentol wants the law to reflect that, she said.

The bill aims to raise dog and cat-napping (the stealing, not the sleeping) to a Class E felony with two years of jail time if convicted. If a dog-napper aims to sell the animal for scientific research or for malicious purposes (such as for use in dog fighting, an issue Mr. Lentol has campaigned against since 2007) the crime would be upgraded to a Class D felony, under the bill. This would entail four years of jail time if convicted.

Mr. Lentol is most concerned about those who would sell the animals for scientific research, Ms. Cleary said. But that crime appears to be rare: The National Association for Biomedical Research says that 3 percent of all cats and dogs used in lab tests are not sourced from breeders or lab animal dealers. About 66,000 dogs are used in scientific research yearly.

And not everyone is Cruella de Vil, hoping to turn Dalmatian puppies into fur coats. In the week since Mr. Lentol proposed the legislation, Internet commenters have expressed concern that the law could be a deterrent for would-be rescuers, who might fear prosecution if they take in a distressed animal.

"There is a very strong element of intent with this," said Ms. Cleary. Nevertheless, Mr. Lentol will add "safe harbor" proviso to the proposed law, similar to those that permit mothers to abandon babies at hospitals without fear of reprisal. This would prevent a "chilling effect" on do-gooders, she says.

"You have to know that you are taking someone else's animal from their possession," she said, "not an abandoned animal or street or one that got lost." Only if this level of intent is proven in court by a prosecutor and then affirmed by a jury or judge would a person be convicted, she said.

However, Ms. Cleary said, such a law would likely apply to Giusseppe Francis Leonardo and his wife, who took Laika believing she was abandoned after she was left tied up outside a shop for several hours. Though Mr. Leonardo believed he was saving the dog, Ms. Cleary says that under this legislation, if he knew the animal belonged to someone else, he would be open to prosecution.

"In that case you're supposed to call the ASPCA. You can't just take someone else's animal," she said.

However, "If he truly believed the animal was abandoned," she said, he would not be convicted.