In late August 2026, a one-year-old bottle-raised miniature donkey named HeeHaw was tased and then shot in his own pasture in Georgia. Officers had entered the property at night while searching for a missing child. His owner was not warned they were there. HeeHaw approached them the way a socialized companion animal does — braying, curious, doing what donkeys do. He was killed anyway.

That case is not a Washington case. The legal gap it exposed is. Washington still classifies companion animals as personal property. Intentionally killing someone’s animal can already be first-degree animal cruelty, a Class C felony, but only if prosecutors can prove undue suffering or extreme indifference to life. Willfully or recklessly killing a pet is often only a gross misdemeanor. Officers also have extra statutory cover when they destroy an animal. When a healthy companion animal is shot because it walked toward strangers on its own land, the owner is usually left with a civil fight over “property,” not a clear criminal standard.

That classification does not match what these animals actually do.

They are not interchangeable objects. They serve in the military and in law enforcement. They guide and stabilize people with disabilities. They give elderly people a reason to get up, move, and stay connected. For many veterans living with PTSD and other service-connected injuries, a dog, horse, or other companion is not a hobby. It is the difference between isolation and a livable day — a reason to walk outside, a body that notices panic before the person does, a living presence when sleep and crowds are hard. When that animal is killed without a real, imminent threat to a human being, the harm is not the replacement cost of a “thing.” It is the loss of a working partner and, in many cases, a form of care the state already asks veterans and disabled people to rely on.

We ask the Governor and the Legislature to close that gap in Washington law.

Specifically, we ask you to:

1.  Create a clear felony — or elevate the existing pet-killing statute — for intentionally or recklessly killing another person’s companion animal when there is no imminent threat of serious bodily harm to a person.

2.  Apply that standard to public employees, including law enforcement, with only a narrow written exception: an animal that is actively attacking a person and cannot otherwise be contained. Curiosity, barking, braying, or approaching an officer on the animal’s own property is not an attack.

3.  Require, whenever an officer kills a companion or service animal: body-camera preservation, an investigation by an agency other than the one that fired the shot, and prompt notice to the owner.

4.  Allow owners to recover not only the animal’s market value but damages for loss of companionship and, where applicable, loss of service — including service to veterans, disabled people, and the elderly.

5.  Recognize in statute that companion animals used in military service, law enforcement, disability support, and veteran mental-health support are not ordinary chattel when they are unjustifiably destroyed.

We are not asking the state to ban livestock agriculture, hunting, or lawful veterinary euthanasia. We are asking it to stop treating a veteran’s dog, a disabled person’s guide animal, a child’s bottle-raised companion, or a family donkey as disposable property when someone with a badge decides the animal looked threatening.

HeeHaw cannot be brought back. Washington can still decide that the next companion animal killed this way is a crime with a real penalty, not a paperwork problem about damaged property.