By R.G. Dunlop
Special to NKyTribune
The bills poured in.
By the tens.
By the hundreds.
By the thousands.
From 2020 until the Kentucky Legislature adjourned on April 15, some 7,500 bills were introduced in the state House and state Senate on a wide range of topics. They included explosives, malt beverages, obscenity and pornography, plumbers, auctioneers, cemeteries and burials, dairying and milk marketing, and sewer systems.
Among the other subjects: animal abuse, and the cost of caring for animals seized by authorities during cruelty investigations. But virtually none of the bills seeking to address those two issues achieved even limited success.
During the seven regular and two special legislative sessions since 2020, approximately 40 bills were introduced related to animal abuse and cost of care.
Just four became law.
Of the 7,500 bills, that amounts to one of every 1,875, or .053 percent, that took the often circuitous path from the drawing board to the Kentucky Revised Statutes.
Of the four bills, one that passed in 2020 allowed veterinarians to report suspected animal abuse. Prior to passage of that bill, Kentucky was the only state in the county that barred veterinarians from recounting instances of possible abuse.
The initial version of the 2020 legislation made the reporting mandatory, as is currently the case in roughly half the states. But the bill got watered down during the legislative process, to ultimately “allow,” rather than “require,” the reporting by veterinarians.
A second bill, which became law in 2022, expanded the definition of domestic violence and abuse. The revised statute included brutality against an animal when used as a means of coercion or punishment directed at a “family member or member of an unmarried couple who has a close bond of affection” with the animal.
And a third piece of legislation, enacted in 2024, made the initial and every subsequent instance of animal torture a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Previously, the first animal torture offense had been a misdemeanor.
This successful measure was informally named “Ethan’s Law” in honor of the abused, neglected – and now internationally acclaimed – dog dumped in the Kentucky Humane Society’s parking lot in January 2021. Attempts to pass the bill during the four previous legislative sessions had failed.
While most animal abuse and cost of care bills have gained little political impetus since 2020, one issue that steamrolled through the General Assembly this year, after failed attempts in several previous legislative sessions, also involved animals – but not those abused or neglected. Rather, it elevated those that became state symbols.
Thanks to landslide votes (36-1 in the state Senate, 83-7 in the House), the Treeing Walker Coonhound is now the “official state dog of Kentucky.” The eastern spotted skunk is now the “official state nongame mammal.” And the eastern hellbender is the “official state amphibian.”
And that’s not all. The state’s “official pets” have become domestic cats and dogs, both purebred and mixed breeds, “that reside in or have been adopted from Kentucky animal shelters or rescue organizations.”
Proposed legislation that failed to advance during the nine sessions of the General Assembly since 2020 included several bills pertaining to animal fighting and animal cruelty. In addition, there were six consecutive unsuccessful attempts, beginning in 2021, to enact a cost of care statute that would have required individuals accused of animal abuse to bear the financial responsibility for animals seized during cruelty investigations.
The intent of such laws is to shift the monetary burden from shelters and taxpayers to those individuals from whom the animals were taken. But only one of the cost of care bills, in 2022, was approved by even one legislative chamber.
Another unsuccessful legislative initiative in recent years would have required the state’s animal-control officers to receive training on recognizing child abuse. The 2025 and 2026 bills stipulated that the statute “may be cited as Kyan’s Law,” a reference to 10-year-old Kyan Higgins, who allegedly was violently abused and then murdered by his mother, Kaitlyn Higgins, in April 2021
Neither of the two bills pertaining to animal-control officers perceiving child abuse was enacted, however. Nor did one succeed that was one filed in 2024 but did not bear Kyan Higgins’ name.
This year’s bill passed the House in March without a dissenting vote. But after being referred to the Senate, the bill died in committee.
Officers had gone to the Higgins’ residence more than two dozen times in the 20 months prior to Kyan Higgins’ death, public records show. But those trips appear to have been related to Kaitlyn Higgins’ dogs, rather than to allegations that she had physically abused her son, according to the records.
A mistrial was declared earlier this year in Kaitlyn Higgins’ murder case. A new trial date has not yet been scheduled.
Asked whether she thinks issues pertaining to animal abuse and cost of care have been given short shrift in recent years by the Kentucky General Assembly, Jai Hamilton, cruelty investigator with Lexington-Fayette Animal Care & Control, replied:
“This is a great question! Years ago I helped write one of the cost of care bills that went nowhere, and it was very disheartening. I don’t quite understand the ins and outs of Frankfort politics.”
Joye Keeley, founder of the Kentucky Link Coalition, said the path to legislative success is often an uphill climb.
“I think it is a fair assessment, and one that is valid every year,” said Keeley, a retired Louisville Metro Police lieutenant whose work with the Kentucky Link Coalition is designed to “provide education regarding the link between animal abuse and interpersonal violence.”
Keeley said she thinks many legislators and others wrongly believe that animal welfare laws “will have a slippery slope effect on their right to hunt with dogs,” as well as negative consequences for agriculture.
Keeley also said animal-rights groups are often unjustly viewed as “activists who are committed to animals having the same or similar rights as humans, and any animal welfare bills are just another slippery slope toward animals gaining such rights.”
And Keeley puts some of the responsibility for legislative inaction on corporations “who have the money to influence our legislators into voting against animal welfare bills. Meanwhile we have a statewide if not national overflow in shelters and rescues which is costing every single taxpayer in the Commonwealth money to care for these animals.”
“Yet, our legislators are refusing to even consider passing a cost of care bill,” Keeley said.
That fact has not escaped notice from Republican State Sen. Julie Raque Adams of Louisville, who sponsored cost of care bills in 2022, 2025, and also this year. Only the 2022 bill, which passed the Senate, gained any legislative traction, but it went nowhere in the House.
Asked why proposed cost of care legislation has not resonated well with many legislators, Raque Adams replied: “I don’t know. Everybody comes in with their own set of priorities. It’s hard to cut through all the bills that various legislators think are important.”
State Sen. Lindsey Tichenor of Smithfield in Henry County sponsored the unsuccessful 2024 bill requiring animal-control officers to receive training to recognize child abuse and neglect. And state Sen. Greg Elkins of Winchester introduced legislation in 2024 and last year to expand the definition of animal cruelty in Kentucky law from dog fighting to animal fighting in general. Those bills too went nowhere in the legislature.
Neither Tichenor nor Elkins responded to requests for interviews in connection with this story.
Todd Blevins, Kentucky state director of the Humane World for Animals (formerly, the Humane Society), said he thinks some state legislators “generally don’t see bills concerning animals as a priority.”
“But what’s important to remember about cost of care is that it’s not just about animals – it’s about saving taxpayer dollars,” Blevins said. “Right now, county animal shelters – which are funded by taxpayers – are the ones footing the bill in so many of these cases.
“That ultimately means counties have less money for all the other services they are required to provide, unless they want to raise taxes. And as long as we don’t have a cost of care law, that’s not going to get any better.”
But Blevins said he and his allies, working to combat animal abuse, aren’t giving up.
“We will continue to diligently pursue these and other opportunities to prevent animal cruelty and suffering in Kentucky, and remain hopeful that the legislature will act on them in coming sessions.”
See Part 3 – Animal abuse here