Two dogs are dead in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. According to Lock Haven Police, officers sent to a local home found one dog lying dead in the basement and a second dog nearby in critical condition. That second dog did not survive. A veterinary report found that both animals were severely malnourished.

Megan Confer, 33, is charged with aggravated cruelty to animals (two counts) and aggravated cruelty involving torture (two counts). Police allege she failed to give the dogs the basic care they needed to stay alive. She was arraigned and is being held in the county jail on $15,000 bail. Like anyone charged with a crime, she is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Now the Clinton County District Attorney's Office decides how hard this case is pushed. Pennsylvania passed Libre's Law in 2017 so the worst animal cruelty cases could be treated as serious felonies. Cases like this one are the reason that law exists. These felony charges should not be quietly traded down to a fine or a lesser offense in a plea deal.

Justice for these two dogs also means protecting the next animal. If Confer is convicted, the Clinton County Court of Common Pleas should bar her from owning, keeping, or living with any animal for life. A short sentence alone does nothing to stop the same thing from happening again.

Dogs cannot ask for food or call for help. They depend on the people around them, and on prosecutors and judges, to act when that trust is broken.

Sign the petition to urge the Clinton County District Attorney to pursue every charge in full and seek a lifetime animal ownership ban, before another animal suffers.