Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel wants it known that he has no intention of stopping Arkansans from carrying dogs in pickups.

“For some reason, all morning I’ve been asked about dogs in the back of pickup trucks,” McDaniel told the Senate Judiciary Committee today while testifying on Senate Bill 77, a proposal to make aggravated cruelty to dogs, cats and horses a felony on first offense. The bill also includes misdemeanor provisions.

“I don’t know why that’s a new thing that’s come up in the last few days, but I think it’s important at least to address it,” McDaniel said. “There is in my mind and in the mind of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association, the Sheriffs Association and the Chiefs of Police Association no chance in the world that anybody is going to get charged with any kind of an animal cruelty violation because they put a dog in the back of a pickup truck in Arkansas.”

McDaniel says it would be a misdemeanor under the bill to, for example, transport 15 puppies in a box with no air holes, but “this is absolutely not about my black lab who always has ice on his ears coming back from the woods after a hunt.”

Tags: animal cruelty, Dustin McDaniel

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