A bill that aims to strengthen the state’s animal cruelty laws and clearly define suitable conditions for pets is moving through the Legislature with bipartisan support.

The bill, SB1234, aims to clarify what constitutes inhumane conditions for domestic animals, redefine what it means to provide the appropriate food, water, and shelter, and add a misdemeanor charge for failing to provide an animal with medical attention to prevent unnecessary suffering. 

The law was prompted by an animal cruelty case in September 2023, when 55 disabled dogs were seized from a Chandler home. The homeowner, April McLaughlin, was arrested on multiple charges of animal cruelty, fraud and theft.

McLaughlin was taken into custody and indicted, but it took three weeks for the Chandler Police Department to get a search warrant for the property and rescue the animals.

“The reason it took so long is because the language is very lax in its description of animal abuse, especially around suffering and food, shelter and water,” said Dr. Steven Hansen, president and CEO of the Arizona Humane Society. 

The Humane Society treated the injured dogs that were rescued from the home, but seeing the condition of the animals took a personal toll on many of the workers at the organization, Hansen said.

“There were several dogs with fractured limbs, and bone was exposed, and had been exposed for a very long amount of time, and they were paralyzed dogs, so they actually didn’t feel their fractures, which is just awful,” he said. “You can imagine…there were tears in our hospital when those dogs were coming in.”

Hansen worked with Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, to craft the bill. It is modeled after a similar bill introduced last year by Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, which stalled in the Legislature. The current bill passed the Senate Regulatory Affairs and Government Efficiency Committee unanimously on Feb. 20, cleared the Senate Rules Committee, and is now awaiting consideration by the Senate Committee of the Whole.

The updated bill requires that water be drinkable, food be appropriate for the species and fit for consumption, and shelter be structurally sound and sized to protect a dog from injury while allowing the animal to stand, move around freely, and maintain normal body temperature.

It also raises the threshold for what’s considered proper food, water and shelter for animals.

“Right now, animals just have to have water,” Hansen said. “It can be a mud puddle. It can be a quarter of an inch with algae growing in it, with feces in it. That technically passes as water.”

One of the most important aspects of the bill is a change in language that holds someone accountable for not providing medical care that would prevent “unreasonable suffering” as opposed to “protracted suffering,” he said.

“It’s an average person’s understanding of what suffering is. So it’s intensity versus length of time, and it would allow a search warrant to be written sooner on these egregious cases,” he said.

Bolick said the bill was crafted to provide more tools for law enforcement to quickly rescue animals and prosecute animal abusers.

“That was the impetus behind this, because law enforcement, they weren’t able to do anything,” Bolick said. “This will hopefully get them to where they need to.”

The bill doesn’t target homeless people with pets or farm animals. It’s only intended to focus on the most egregious cases of animal abuse, Hansen said.

“It is not your average ‘my dog has an ear infection’,” he said. “That would never rise to the level of a case under this legislation or any legislation.”