Ralph Northam just signed a bill called “Tommy’s Law” that would make animal cruelty a felony. Before this, it was only a felony after an animal had died. I’m glad to see Virginia is sensible that any sort of cruelty is intolerable and should be punished. It was set in motion after a Pitbull in Richmond was set fire for unknown reasons. Poor pup died 5 days later and no one was caught and convicted.
I am happy to see a bill move forward so quickly. It goes back to my last article that at the state level something needs to be done. I have researched into local ordinances and have no progress. Virginia has an odd rule which states that counties and districts can only govern themselves in certain areas.
The representative that introduced the bill was Bill Desteph and it is legislation he has draft in the past and recently executed after uproar by Tommy. I’m happy to see that we have representatives in our state that deeply care about this issue. I will need to do more research and hopefully push my agenda to have Pet stores only sell animal shelter dogs and cats like California. A business model that is promising but does not effectively shut down businesses. A technical win win on both sides. No animals would be received from Puppy Mills. It will take some time again to see who wrote and pushed the legislation in California and something we can adopt here.
As always its a learning process and slow. But hopefully they are receptive to my letters, emails and calls. If they love animals so much they can’t stand to see them abused. I hope they love them animal to stop the vicious cycle that gets thousands hurt everyday just for profits. Time to talk some sense and bring about real change. Perhaps a Pet Loyal Project tag can help guide them.
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