Dear Next President,

People should get worse consequences for animal cruelty. If people get worse consequences for animal cruelty then they won’t do it as often. In Maine, cruelty fines are $500-$2500 and imprisonment up to 1 year. For aggravated cruelty, fines are $1000-$10,000 and up to 5 years imprisonment. If the fines and the time they spend in prison get increased, not as many people will abuse animals.

According to Andrea Nolan, a veterinarian and professor, animals might feel pain different than us humans. Animals most likely feel more pain than humans do. Just think, if you step on a human's foot accidentally, then what would usually happen is you would just step off of it and the other person wouldn't pay much attention to it. If you step on a dog's foot by accident,then usually the dog would let out a high pitched yelp. Animals don't really have a way of communicating pain to humans as we can one another. Even though your dog might whimper if s/he is in pain. Animals like rabbits and other animals that can’t make much sound have trouble communicating with humans.

My final reason for people need to get worse consequences for abusing animals is that it’s hard for animals to rebuild trust after being abused. There are people that have a camp near ours and we are good friends with them. A few years ago they adopted a dog who had been abused in the past and it was still horrified when people came near him. My point by this is that if you abuse an animal they are scarred for life and they aren't able to come back from it. If we increase consequences then not as many animals will be abused.

We need to increase consequences for animal abuse because less people would abuse animals, animals feel more pain than us, and because it scars them for life.

Sincerely,

Jacob