Our pets are our family, just like our parents, siblings and children. We hurt when they hurt, a little piece of us goes with them when they die. But there is nothing like the anguish of knowing that your beloved pet might have been saved if a veterinarian had only treated them as if they were important as a being rather than a dollar bill. Many of us have lost our loved ones this way, and the pain and suffering our pets endure until there is nothing left to them is unimaginable.

We, the undersigned, ask that you, our representatives at the State House, draft legislation requiring veterinary facilities to be responsible for care as if they were human hospitals. Their refusal to do so is unconscionable.