Webinar: Pennsylvania’s Pet Protection Orders: A New Tool to Protect Families and Pets

Описание: Webinar from February 25, 2025

Animal abuse frequently is an indicator and predictor of interpersonal, family, and community violence, particularly in domestic violence and child maltreatment scenarios. Significant numbers of women report that threats to their companion animals prevent them from leaving abusive relationships. Concern for the safety of pets is a true barrier for women seeking safe shelter as batterers frequently use threatening or harming pets as a control tactic over their victims.

Pets are often used to lure or force victims back to their abusers. Unfortunately, reports from Pennsylvania programs include pets being killed during assaults, sometimes in front of small children; remains of pets being hung from trees, thrown in yards, or kept in freezers to intimidate family members; pets being starved, neglected, or abandoned. Victims frequently stay in unsafe situations in order to care for pets. It can be particularly difficult to make emergency boarding and care arrangements for large animals, farm animals, and exotics. The need for pet protective orders in Pennsylvania were long overdue.

House Bill 1210, sponsored by PA State Representatives Christina Sappey and Natalie Mihalek, now known as Act 146, was signed into law by Governor Shapiro on November 18, 2024. Act 146: Protecting Families and Pets in Crisis aims to help domestic abuse survivors leave dangerous situations with their entire families, including their pets.

Act 146 extends the provisions of Protection from Abuse (PFA) Orders to explicitly include companion animals by expanding protection through temporary ownership and refrains, establishing legal consequences for violating a PFA, and empowering survivors.

Crisis Center North and the Keystone Link Coalition will host this virtual webinar to share the good news that Pennsylvania now has a pet protective order law and to summarize what this law means and its implications for human and humane services.