Short Stuff: Rescuing Mistreated Pets
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Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's sitting in for Dave. So this is short. That's right. This is all about if you go by a house and you see a dog that's being mistreated, whether or not it's okay to bust into that yard or house and take that dog. Yeah, because of course you would think, well, yeah, there's a dog suffering or a cat suffering or even a pig or something suffering. Of course I should be able to go rescue the thing.

And the answer is no, do not do that. But that doesn't mean you should just leave that animal on its own. You should go do something about it. And we're going to tell you what to do. That's right. If you do that, you could get charged with trespassing or theft, of course. All 50 states have obviously animal cruelty laws.

So you do have some things you can do like, well, we should talk about cars first because there is a bit of a loophole if you see a dog like in a hot car. In a lot of states, I think 31 states say that's a crime. And 14 states provide you civil immunity for you to just brick that window open and get that dog or cat out.

Yeah, which is pretty cool. Like if you see some sort of animal whose life is in danger or can suffer from serious injury in a hot or very cold car, then you can, like you said, break the window. But there are some criteria you have to meet in those states where they do offer immunity. You have to believe the animal is in immediate danger. Immediate danger, not like, wow, if that animal stays in there for three more hours, it's going to cook. Right.

That's a big one. Yeah, you have to try and find the owner and then, you know, try the car door to make sure it's locked. That's a big one. Like, you have to determine that there's no other way to free the animal because wouldn't you just have egg on your face if you smashed somebody's windshield in to unlock the door and found the door was already unlocked? Yeah, egg and maybe glass.

That's right. Another one is you want to use the minimum amount of force necessary to get in the car. Like, you don't want to break your way in and then proceed to go smash all the rest of the windows in just because, you know, this is your one big chance. Yeah. And you can't go running at it going, ah!

Right. Because in cartoon fashion, your baseball bats is going to bounce off of the car's window anyway. That's right. And then let's say you do all this stuff right. You bust that window open. You got that dog. You've got to, you know, you got to call 911, of course, in most states. And you should anyway. But then you got to stay there and wait with that animal until somebody of authority shows up. Right. Some states you have to call 911 first. Others you have to call after. Right.

They're like, just get to the business of getting the animal out first, right? That's right. Like you said, that loophole only exists in 14 states. And in at least one of them, Indiana, you're still on the hook for half of the damage that you caused to the vehicle. Seems unfair. Yeah. But even if your state is not one of the 14...

Then your city might be. I think so. This is a rare short stuff that we got help with from Dave. And he said that in Boise, you can you have legal immunity, even though in the state of Idaho, you don't. Yeah. So check your local laws if you feel like you want to drive around and look for hot dogs with a brick. Right. While eating a hot dog. Yeah.

So, again, that is just cars. If you see an animal at a house that's in danger or you feel like it's in danger, call 911. If it's an emergency, they'll send somebody out. They may route it to animal control.

The cops can enforce and handle animal cruelty in a lot of places. But the ASPCA found, and this is a little old, but in 2010, less than 20 percent of police received that kind of training. And less than half of them are even familiar with those laws. So you'll probably get someone from like animal control sent out.

Yeah, I looked for an updated study and the best I could find was 2015 and it was supplemental more than an update. But the stat that jumped out to me is 50% of law enforcement officers who were polled said that they encountered dog fighting in their line of work. So they do need to have better training and better awareness of animal cruelty laws. And I think something like a good 50% of those same people

that were polled said, we want more training, more and better training to deal with stuff like that. Yeah. Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. All right. We should now.

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Okay, so if you see an animal that is in distress or you think is being neglected or abused or something, but their life isn't in immediate danger, as far as you can tell, there are some other things you can do. I don't know if we said, if you call 911, you want to report it as an emergency. And then the dispatcher will probably be like, well, tell me a little bit about it. And depending on whether it's an emergency or not, they might send the cops, they might send the animal control or animal shelter people. But if you see an animal that is in distress,

But no matter where you live, your city or county is going to have some division or department or agency that's in charge of enforcing animal cruelty laws. Right. But it's not necessarily the cops. It's not even necessarily a governmental agency. In some places, it's a charitable organization who steps up and is like, well, we'll handle this if nobody else is. Yeah, I think in 34 states, right.

the Humane Society has actual deputized animal control people, like deputized by the local police that essentially act as the police of this kind of thing. Yeah. And in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, they're also authorized to carry guns and they're also authorized to shoot animal abusers on site. That's not true, but it should be true. Yeah.

See, you couldn't tell from my whistle whether or not I fell for that one. That's my new move. Oh, it worked because it threw me for a loop. I'm also really tired and I saw Long Legs last night, so I'm not quite myself. But we'll see if it works again in the future. What's Long Legs? I've heard of that. What is that? It's Osgood Perkins' new movie. Oh, that's right. The guy who wrote The Black Coat's Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing Who Lives in the House. Yeah, which we disagreed very famously on Black Coat's Daughter. Okay, so...

This is a lot more movie-ish than Black Coat's Daughter. Yeah, I've heard it's good. It's very good, but it also, like, seriously, I'm not quite right today after having seen that movie. It's worth seeing, though. I would say get to theaters, too, and see it in theaters. I watched the Brian De Palma classic Blowout last night on Criterion app. That's a good one. That's a good one. All right, so that's movie recommendations. Okay. Back to animals. Okay.

You know, if this is the kind of thing that matters to you, then look up what you've got going on in your town. Find out who the animal control agencies are.

There's bound to be a website where you can report something like this if you don't want to just straight up call 911. Or maybe it's the kind of thing where you're like, man, I got a bad feeling something's like if you see a dog on a chain or something like that, you know, and it doesn't look like it's necessarily dying or suffering. You can still file a complaint because you shouldn't keep your dog on a chain in the front yard or backyard or any yard or side yard.

So fill out a complaint online and they will get back to you. Right. Like, you know, they'll do it. Those don't get ignored.

Even if they don't have some sort of like, here, write this in this field and write this in this field, there are some details that you want to include or some steps you want to take. The first is you want to be as detailed as possible about what you think is going on, whether it's abuse or neglect or both or whatever, why you think that. And also, you want to make sure you have the right address. You don't want the SWAT team showing up at the wrong address of somebody who you think is neglecting an animal. Right.

That's right. Especially in those three states that can shoot you on sight. Sure. Another one is, sure. Another one is the dates and times where you witnessed the abuse. Yeah, it's a good idea. Kind of just keep a little log of what's going on and when it's happening. Yeah. And as a little just life advice, anytime something significant happens that you're like, this might come back at

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of times these things can be done anonymously. I mean, you may have to submit your name and contact information. Maybe you can make an anonymous tip, but they're also not going to say like, hey, your across the street neighbor said blank, blank, blank.

Right. Yeah, that guy there. Yeah. The one looking out of the blinds. Exactly. And then, yeah, so you may be called to testify as a witness. That's the reason why you might want to be included. And then there's a there's a good workaround, too.

If you're like, I think something's going on. I don't suspect that the dog's life is in immediate danger. But I just want to know. I want to make sure that the dog's okay. Most of the time you can call in what's called a wellness check on an animal with the Humane Society. You can do the same thing with humans too.

But it can do it with animals and the Humane Society will send out an officer who knows what they're doing and knows what to look for and all the signs and how to speak to people and find out if the dog is actually being abused or neglected. And then they'll send you a ribbon that you can wear around town that just says hero. Are we at the point where I can tell my quick story of when I've done this?

Yeah. Yeah, please. So you haven't even heard this one, but quite a few years ago we had we got a report. You know, we have our finger on the pulse a little bit of the local sort of animal rescue people around us, which is, you know, where we live. It's a wonderful team that are doing God's work.

in the neighborhoods that surround me. And we know a lot of them and they're all like, that's how we got Charlie is through one of these rescues, like trapping her in the woods with some wonderful people. And I tell you what though, you blow that whistle and they're like, we are on it, man. What do you need? That's awesome. So I got a report through this network that there was a dog that had like a family that moved and left this dog in the backyard and it was emaciated.

which is one of the most reprehensible things I can think of. It's just to not even try and rehome your dog, but to just say, we're leaving the dog here. And it was on our route in our neighborhood on our dog walk, and we went by a couple of times, saw this dog in the backyard, and came back with some wire cutters and cut a big hole in that chain link fence.

And took this dog and found her a great home. And I checked in a couple of times over the years and then realized about three or four months ago that I hadn't in a long time and checked in with this family. And that sweet old dog had just passed away a few months earlier. Oh. And had a great, great life with this family. That's awesome. That dog went on to be Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah.

I never felt so good about doing something. And you can look at my Instagram. I posted it. The mom of the family sent me a picture. And this dog is one of those that, like, got a totally gray face and head, basically. And so I kind of told the story and put up a little tribute picture on my Instagram of when we got this dog and then the old sweet gray face. So that's it. Chuck the Podcaster. If you want to check it out, I probably won't think to pin it, but it's in there. Very sweet, man.

I guess that's it, right? Yeah, but I also don't advise you to do stuff like that. We just acted on instinct. Yeah, so, yeah, just go back and listen to what we said and keep an eye out to help animals that are in need of help. Okay, everybody? Do as Chuck says, not as he did. Yeah, well, of course, that means short stuff is out.

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