You are basing your judgment on emotion. Weeping for the poor animals. I am more concerned with governmental abuse of humans. Such as allowing people to murder the unborn.
Hardly, you are the one lashing out with emotion. I base my reasoning on biblical principles and that we are to be responsible for our actions and decisions. You are trying to change the issue to other things (abortion, etc) because you’re losing the issue we’re discussing.
The guy could have gotten rid of his pet any number of lawful ways, and he chose instead to abandon and dump the animal. Where he lives (and where most people live) that’s either an ordinance violation or a misdemeanor. Nobody forced him to BUY the pet in the first place, but he did, and he has to be responsible for its welfare because it is a domesticated animal. If he no longer wants to be responsible for it, he needs to either turn it into a shelter, sell it to people who will be responsible for it, any number of things that he could have done that are lawful, responsible ways to do so.
Your attempt to bring up other issues unrelated to this is a deflectionary tactic and I see right through it. If you are so concerned as you say you are about the other issues why then are you wasting your time arguing with me about this? You must be bored.
Bottom line, is that we have animal cruelty laws, we have animal welfare laws, and it not out of line for the state to expect people who buy a domesticated pet animal to follow through and take care of it, or if they don’t want it anymore, to do so in ways that are not cruel or simply abandoning it altogether. There are laws that say you can’t just abandon your animals. Most communities have them in some form.
And how we treat our animals is a measure of how we treat people. I wouldn’t hold a person in high regard if he beat his dog all the time. Or the dog was always sick and looking not cared for.