Twenty-six animals, 22 cats and 4 dogs, were just rescued from a home on Bell Road in Lamar County, Georgia. It took a search warrant and four separate agencies (Lamar County Animal Services, the Sheriff's Office, code enforcement, Barnesville Police Animal Control, and Spalding County Animal Care and Control) to reach these animals and remove them from neglect. Two people now face 26 counts of animal cruelty.

That it took this many agencies working together to respond is the real warning here. Neglect on this scale rarely happens overnight. It builds for months, sometimes years, before anyone with the authority to act steps in.

Georgia's current animal cruelty penalties are not strong enough to deter cases like this one, and there is no standard system in place for at-risk homes to be checked before conditions become this severe.

This petition calls on State Rep. David Knight, State Rep. Beth Camp, and State Senator Marty Harbin, who represent Lamar County in the Georgia General Assembly, to introduce or support legislation that increases penalties for large-scale animal neglect and cruelty, and directs local animal control agencies to conduct regular welfare checks on properties with prior complaints, before neglect reaches the scale seen on Bell Road.

The 26 animals from this case are now recovering in county custody. The next 26 should not have to wait for a raid to be saved.

Sign the petition to demand tougher cruelty penalties and proactive welfare checks in Georgia, before more animals suffer in silence.