Animal Law HeartachesOk, so the title might be a bit melodramatic. That's just my style.
I'm taking a course called "Animal Law" this semester. This is a class that examines the different ways animals and the law meet, what case history tells us and what trends we're seeing. It is not an animal rights class. It is a class about human's rights to own, care for, love and yes, kill, animals. It is a class about who may recover and for how much when an animal is treated unjustly, and what unjust treatment entails. It's not always a pleasant case. One of the most stomach-churning cases involved pet cats and a common, cube-shaped kitchen appliance, and a vindictive boyfriend. No more need be said.
Surprisingly, I didn't have a hard time with that case, nor the other animal cruelty cases. I didn't have a hard time reading about how almost 200 innocent pit bulls were killed in Denver when the pit bull ban went back into effect. Even reading about starving livestock was tolerable. Being in animal rescue, I've heard of it all before. I've already cried about it and tried my tears. I already know that humanity is capable of such things.
It surprised me all the more when I had trouble with our last assignment. The section we're dealing with now is animals involved in trots. In one case, a dog owner kenneled her dog, returned two weeks later to learn they had lost her dog. They blew her off, ridiculed her, dodged her questions and were overall very unprofessional in their handling of the situation. Here's the part that made my heart sink into my stomach:
The court rules, "No reasonably prudent person would have realized that the kennel's conduct in failing to take steps to search thoroughly for the plaintiff's dog; failing to show caring and compassion for the plaintiff's loss and treating her callously; treating the plaintiff rudely with anger; and not contacting the plaintiff until 8 days after the loss of the dog, would have involved an unreasonable risk of causing emotional distress and that that distress, if it were caused, might result in illness or bodily injury."
Rees v. Flaherty, 2003 Conn. Super. LEXIS 289 (Feb. 6, 2003). If you're like me, you don't need me to explain why I find this so shocking and disheartening. If you can't see it by reading it, you may not understand even if I were to explain.
It's one thing to get funny looks when I talk about my hedgehogs. It's understandable that many people do not know what animal law is or why it's important. I also understand that the law offers scarce protection for animal companions when something bad happens to them, since most of the law views animals as mere property, worth only what they could fetch on the open market. But to hear from the judiciary that emotional distress suffered at the loss of a loved friend is unreasonable... that just stings in an unexpectedly painful way.
~Kristen