Dade County to Have Animal Cruelty Ordinance

TRENTON, GA (WDEF-TV) – Georgia does not have a law on the books protecting animals left in hot cars.
In fact,only 16 states have laws regarding willful neglect or animal cruelty, but Dade county will soon have one.

At the request of Dade county deputy Danny Ellis, the county commission has passed on first reading an ordinance that literally putS "teeth" into that law.
Ellis says people get busy sometimes and forget that their pets are suffering from extreme heat, or in some cases extreme cold.

LT. DANNY ELLIS, DADE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT "We can go into a car ..like I say,using either the lock system or we can unlock the car if we have to break a glass…and that’s taking the liability off of us ..to break the glass, we can then take the animal to a vet center and whoever owns the animal will be responsible for the vet bill as well."

That ordinance will become law after the next reading at the county commission meeting.