In response to Maggie Curran’s article “Protect your Pet”

I am just as happy as the next guy whenever animals aren’t abused. Except for cats. There should be a law that makes it possible to sue your cat for leaving tread marks on your arm because you won’t pick him up. I’m talking about you Skittles. Feline problems aside, I was happy when there was an article pertaining to a new law passed this year by the Illinois legislator which makes it illegal to leave dogs and cats exposed to life threatening situations in extreme heat or cold. However, this is already a law. According to the Humane Treatment of Animals Act, which was already in place prior to the new law being passed, it is illegal to “abandon any animal where it may…suffer injury, hunger or exposure”. Leaving your shih tzu outside in negative 10 degree weather for half an hour definitely falls under that description.

The article says that this law was passed in response to instances in where people let their dogs stay outside for prolonged periods of time. Before this law, however, people who let their dogs outside in cold weather got charged for doing so. Take Tracy Cherry, a women who got charged for leaving her pit bull outside in the cold for an extended period of time. Or Manuel Gaitan, who got charged with leaving dogs in a car during a cold spell. Clearly, it isn’t hard to charge people with animal cruelty for neglecting to take care of their pets and it won’t make it any easier than before with this new law.

This law won’t hurt anyone but it won’t do anything either. It would be like making a law that says you can’t murder anyone who wears a Packers jersey to a Bears game. Sure, the law doesn’t hurt anyone except die-hard (literally) Bears’ fans but it doesn’t benefit anyone because even though it hasn’t been clearly stated in any law, it is still illegal. This law that will be effective at the start of next year is just going to add to the endless list of pointless, hard to keep track of laws that have no nuance between themselves and other laws already in place which is representative of an overbearing government. Obviously, this isn’t a result of one law created but this absurd law is a microcosm of the society we live in today. We have a tax code the size of a phone book and a healthcare system no one understands and soon our law book will be as long and as confusing as a book about 17th century Shakespearean literature. I don’t think anyone wants to live in a country like that and I’m sure Skittles would agree.