You Are Their Voice
A dog in a wire pen in freezing temperatures. Kittens dumped in a box in a parking lot. Threats that people keep their dogs at home — or else. Beloved pets hit by cars or killed by a neighbor’s bullet.
Bearing witness can be exhausting when we feel powerless. The truth is that we’re not powerless — we just haven’t had the information needed to effectively advocate and act. This site exists to empower effective advocacy, with topics including:
- Legal issues in Alabama regarding companion animals: state, county, and municipal laws, and how they are enforced
- Animal cruelty in Alabama: what to know before you report, how to report and gather evidence, differences between the statutes, and the historical context of Alabama’s cruelty laws
- Dog confinement laws: determining whether a law applies, reporting violations, and a guide for county commissions
- Best practices for helping lost, stray, or abandoned animals
- Livestock killed or harmed by dogs: how you can and cannot defend, pursuing reimbursement for losses, preventing future harm
- Animal hoarding information: impacts on animals, people, and communities; legal considerations; and how you can help
- How to find elected & appointed officials based on where you live
- Frequently asked questions on witnessing, reporting, and pressing charges for animal-related violations
- Social media resources to facilitate quick and easy sharing of information to help companion animals
Please Share this Information
We created this website to inform and guide each of us to be a voice for animals, specifically dogs and cats in Alabama. So, we hope you, too, will take advantage of our resources designed for sharing on Facebook, or simply share a link: in reply to a photo of dog in danger of freezing, drop a link to Reporting Cruelty — or report the situation yourself, if you see it with your own eyes. We hope you’ll drop a link to Lost, Stray, or Abandoned Animals when you read about a caring person helping the pets that her neighbor left behind when moving, or the kittens dumped in a box at his workplace. We hope you’ll drop a link to How to Report an At-Large Dog when you come across threats about a neighbor’s dog running loose, to encourage a peaceful and law-abiding resolution. Any website page can be posted to Facebook by clicking on the image at the top of the page.
Contact
You are welcome to email us with suggestions, corrections, or for guidance. Reporters and journalists are encouraged to contact us also. We may be able to offer fact-checking, a quote that you can use in your piece, best practices, or other information.
This website and any assistance we can offer is a completely pro bono effort. We will never ask or expect any form of compensation. Our desire is to share what we have learned, which comes both from our love of animals and through the pain of bearing witness to cruelty.