Reporting Animal Cruelty, Abuse, and Neglect

Cruelty to animals is a serious offense and is never acceptable. Among other things, cruelty includes neglect and unlawful tethering. You can find a full list of animal laws for Virginia here: https://www.animallaw.info/statutes/us/virginia

If you witness or suspect animal cruelty or abuse, as a resident and taxpayer you have the right, and responsibility, to report it. We’ve made an action plan to help navigate you through the process.

Reporting Animal Cruelty Action Plan

Step 1: If you suspect animal cruelty or abuse, you’ll want to contact your local Animal Control office and provide as much info as possible so they can investigate the situation. Ask how you can be updated about the results of an inquiry or investigation. We’ve provided a list of contact information for our region below.

Step 2: Enacting change can take time and you may need to be diligent. If you find that Animal Control is not responding, you may want to try the following steps to help gather more information about the situation:

DO NOT trespass or do anything illegal to collect information. If you can, safely and without entering the property, take photos or video of the conditions, situation, lack of food, housing, etc. for documentation purposes.
Report all the documentation to Animal Control for your locality and share the photos, keeping a copy for you.
If things do not change, again, being safe, document, then contact the supervisor for Animal Control in your area.

Step 3: If you still don’t see changes, keep working your way up the chain of command within the police department for the locality.

Step 4: If none of the previous steps work, contact your local city, town, or county elected representative.

Sometimes we have to be the voices for our animal friends and taking action isn’t always easy or swift. However, by speaking up and speaking out as many times as it takes to see action, we can help those animals in our community who need us.