The puppies were found on May 29, near the intersection of Todds Road and North Cleveland Road. All 13 puppies, only about a week old, died from their injuries - and Lexington-Fayette Animal Care and Control plans to file 13 counts of first-degree animal cruelty against those responsible.
Todd Blevins, Kentucky State Director for the Humane Society of the United States, says "No tip is too small."
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Clay Wallace, WUKY
Can you tell me about the mission of the Humane Society of the United States?
Todd Blevins, Kentucky State Director for the Humane Society of the United States
Our mantra is to fight for all animals all across the country. I live in Richmond, so I'm local and keep up with central Kentucky news, and the egregiousness of this case caused us to get involved.
Clay
You're offering a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest in the case of 13 puppies which were set on fire in Lexington in May. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Todd
Yeah. As you said, 13 puppies set on fire: No doubt that this was an intentional act. And, I mean, to anybody that's listening, I'm sure the folks can understand the egregiousness of that just on its face. I see a lot of animal cruelty in this job and there's a lot of animal cruelty that goes on, but this is particularly cruel. It’s beyond cruel.
Clay
There's a level of intent there.
Todd
There is, there is, and I think that's what causes it to rise above and what makes it stand out to the public [and] you folks in the media have paid a lot of attention to it, and we're so grateful for that. We're hopeful that the reward can continue to keep the spotlight on it.
Clay
Have you found that offering rewards does lead to the case moving forward? Have you seen this work successfully in the past?
Todd
We have. It’s just like any other crime and any other time that a reward is offered, like a Crime Stoppers or something, for instance: it’s no guarantee, but it is guaranteed to get more people paying attention to it. Both the good and the bad thing about this is that so many people are already aware of what was going on, but for those that maybe haven't been aware, or maybe who had forgotten about it, this is designed to put it back in the news cycle.
One other thing I wanted to add is that maybe you're somebody who was close to the area. This took place at Todds Road and North Cleveland Road, if you're familiar with where that is. Maybe you saw something. Maybe you happened to be passing by that intersection on that day. No tip is too small. If you saw something or even if you think you saw something, I know that Lexington Fayette Animal Care and Control would be happy to hear what you may have witnessed or what you may have to offer. So if you think you do have something like that, please come forward.
Clay
The Humane Society of the United States addresses animal cruelty nationwide. Are there specific animal cruelty issues that Kentucky in particular is affected by?
Todd
There are a lot. As our state director, it's part of my job to try to advance animal welfare on the issues that matter most to Kentucky. The state of Kentucky was ranked at the bottom of the list for many, many years in the annual state rankings of how our animal cruelty laws are. We thankfully started to climb that ladder a little bit. We still have a long way to go.
If you just look at our general animal cruelty laws, for a long time, something like this wasn’t even automatically a felony charge. We hope that with the advent of something like Ethan's Law that it’s going to be more clear, but I think that's representative of how far we have had to go and the improvements that I'm confident we're going to continue to make, especially when you have a case like this that causes so many people to pay attention to just how lax our laws are.
Clay
Speak a little bit more about Ethan's Law. What does that change?
Todd
Ethan's Law is named after Ethan, the famous dog who came from the Kentucky Humane Society. It makes torture of a dog or a cat a first offense felony. Before, it was a little ambiguous on that. This law specifies acts of torture that would warrant a felony. It makes the law clearer and we hope makes it more enforceable because, unfortunately, a lot of times, even if animal torture was charged, the case would get pled down because of the ambiguity in the law. We’re hopeful that this will clear some things up and lead to justice being served for more animals.
Clay
Have similar laws in other states been successful in seeing a decrease in animal abuse?
Todd
Yeah, certainly. The whole idea is that a strong deterrent is going to lead to less animal cruelty, right?
We don't want any more Ethans out there. Ethan's story is remarkable, but I'm sure if you asked anyone who's connected with him, no one wishes that he had to go through what he did. It’s the same thing for these puppies. I mean, even if their case shines a spotlight on improvements that we still need to make, no one wanted to be those puppies, and no one wanted to see what happened to those puppies happen.
Clay
So, you say we’ve seen more interest, both in media and in legislature, toward targeting these animal abuse cases. How would you rate the Kentucky General Assembly on their approach to animal cruelty this last session?
Todd
I think the General Assembly is getting better. I really, really do. I think one of the reasons that they are paying more attention to animal cruelty is they are increasingly recognizing what we call the link; that is, the link between animal cruelty and violence against humans, whether that's domestic violence, whether that's child abuse, whether that’s elder abuse or so on. Unfortunately, it's all too common for someone that abuses animals to abuse other people. And I wouldn't be surprised in this case if the individual or the individuals involved in setting the puppies on fire have committed some sort of act against a human. We see it too much.
I think because the legislature understands that connection, we’re starting to see those improvements.
There are more and more folks who are involved in speaking up for animals, but there could always be more. If you're listening to this and you care about the plight of what happened to these puppies and you care about what happens to other animals in our state, contact your elected officials, contact your legislators, contact your local elected officials.
We had the pleasure of working with the Lexington Fayette Urban County Council on an ordinance recently to stop the sale of puppy mill puppies in pet stores and places like flea markets. That's another example of where I think things are moving forward - it’s clear that they are! - but the more that people make it known that this is something that matters to them, the better.
The case of the litter of burned puppies is being investigated by Lexington Fayette Animal Care and Control. If you have any information, email Lieutenant Jai Hamilton at jhamilton@lfacc.org.