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strength training, like having the dog hang by their jaw from a tire tied to a tree.”
“A lot of times it has to do with the way the animal is kept,” Fielder adds.
“People who fight dogs rarely just have one. They’ll have a number of dogs,”
often chained or in small outdoor kennels. Vets and concerned citizens can look
for “scarring on the face or front legs in particular or evidence of wounds in those
areas.”
Sen. Floyd Prozanski of Eugene carried House Bill 2625, which allows animal
care agencies to “pursue forfeiture of animals seized in cases that involve animal
neglect or abuse, regardless of whether any of the criminal charges involve that
specific animal,” according to the news release. These forfeitures would be based
on a guilty verdict in a criminal case.
The third bill, HB 3283, prevents felony animal abusers from owning the kind
of animals they abused for much longer than laid out by previous law; the bill
extends the prohibition from 5 years to 15 years.
All three bills now await Gov. Kate Brown’s signature.
Fielder says neglect is the most common form of animal cruelty reported.
“Skinny horses, the dog tied out without a doghouse — that type of neglect is
what we most frequently have reported to us.”
Oregon’s animal cruelty prosecutor, Jacob Kamins, says criminal neglect cas-
es come up when a person has “a legal responsibility to care for the animal. If
you fail to give them minimal care under the law you could be guilty of neglect.”
In Lane County, however, neglect and abuse may not lead to criminal charges,
and so may not face the increased penalties of these new bills. “Lane County
treats those things as violation level, so a traffic ticket. No chance of jail, no
chance of probation,” Kamins says. “This means the burden of proof is lower
for whoever is prosecuting the case, but it also means you don’t have the same
punishments when charging someone with a crime.”
‘Lane County treats
those things as violation level,
so a traffic ticket. No chance of jail,
no chance of probation.’
— OREGON’S ANIMAL CRUELTY PROSECUTOR, JACOB KAMINS
Devon Ashbridge, the public information officer for Lane County, says in an
email that “animal owners can be cited under Lane Code 7.120 (abuse) or Lane
Code 7.125 (neglect) or Lane Code 7.105 (abandonment). If the neglect or abuse
is severe, criminal prosecution is a possibility.”
These codes Ashbridge adds, cover only unincorporated parts of the county,
not cities like Eugene and Springfield. It is up to the district attorney’s office to
determine whether a case is criminal, she says. She says that signs of neglect
include lack of food or water, lack of shelter, unsanitary conditions, noticeable
trauma and abandonment.
If a person is cited under Lane Code instead of Oregon Law, they will face
small fines instead of jail time, the abuse charges won’t be on their record, and
they won’t face the same consequences that the state requires for criminal cases.
See Eugene Weekly’s previous reporting for more information (“Why is animal
neglect not criminal in Lane County?” in the January 8, 2015 issue). Ashbridge
says, “There have not been changes in how cases are cited in the last two years.”
Ingrid Kessler is the co-owner of the Emergency Veterinary Hospital in
Springfield, a 24/7 facility that sees emergency cases, including 12 to 20 abuse
cases per year from owners and local agencies alike. “It’s hard to talk about even
if you’ve been doing it for 20 years,” Kessler says. “We have seen animals here
who have been burned or cut or sexually abused — sometimes with an isolated
incident and sometimes with human family members who are seeking medical
care simultaneously.”
Kessler points to an alarming statistic: There is an 88 percent correlation
between animal abuse and child abuse. “If someone is going to be a jerk to a
vulnerable family member, they’re not going stop to consider if it has two legs or
four legs.” Oregon laws reflect this, with criminal animal abuse cases including
harsher penalties if a child witnesses the violence.
Kessler says that anyone concerned about animal cruelty should call their lo-
cal police agency to contact the animal welfare office.
If you suspect an animal is being abused or neglected, call Eugene Animal welfare at 541-687-4060. For unincor-
porated areas of Lane County, call Lane County Animal Services at 541-682-3645.
• About 40 marchers showed up on Friday, June 2, to protest the downtown Eugene
dog ban. It’s interesting that the city decided to wait on banning alcohol in all parks due
to “mixed” reviews in public comment, but the City Council charged ahead with banning
pups, despite decidedly mixed reviews. Were there more people with money and
influence wanting to sip wine or toss back a hoppy beer in the park than there were who
stroll with their dogs downtown? For the record, we are pro-dog and pro- a responsible
drink in the park once in a while. We are anti targeting the homeless with awkward bans
clearly aimed at driving the unhoused where they can’t be seen, but not helping them.
• This is the anniversary of the Summer of Love (See this week’s cover feature). Why
don’t we add a renaming party to all the fun activities the city is planning for downtown
Eugene this summer? Make Kesey Square Kesey Square again! Some elements of this
town tried to run away from that name, going instead to the officially boring Broadway
Plaza, but the City Council has reaffirmed the tribute to the great writer Ken Kesey. Time
to celebrate those things that make us different from Everytown, U.S.A.
• Remember this name. Hope Hicks. She’s a young staffer down the food chain on
Donald Trump’s communications team. She was part of the Trump meeting with the pope
at the Vatican, while Sean Spicer, a Catholic, was not. In response to a report by The
Washington Post detailing Trump’s tendency to be demeaning and rude to his staff,
Hicks issued a statement full of exaggerated compliments: Trump has a “magnetic
personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him,” as
well as “an unparalleled ability to communicate with people.” Watch Hope Hicks.
• What We’re Reading: We haven’t opened this one yet but two of our smartest
reading friends have recommended it. Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle
Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About
It by Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution, said to be powerful in its look at the
upper middle educated class in America.
• Ashland actor Denis Arndt, who put in 15 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival in the 1970s and ’80s, is up for a Tony Award for his lead performance in Simon
Stephens’s comedy Heisenberg. Arndt came out of retirement for the play, which ran on
Broadway for two months last fall at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. He played against
Mary-Louise Parker (Fried Green Tomatoes, The West Wing, Weeds), who inexplicably
kisses him on the neck when she encounters him in a train station to open the show. Not
too bad for a guy who turned 78 in February.
SL ANT INCLUDES SHORT OPINION PIECES, OBSERVATIONS AND RUMOR-CHASING NOTES
COMPILED BY THE EW EDITORIAL BOARD. HE ARD ANY GOOD RUMORS L ATELY?
CONTAC T C AMILL A MORTENSEN AT 541-484-0519, EDITOR@EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
eugeneweekly.com • June 8, 2017
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