A. Any person who maliciously kills, maims, or wounds an animal which is the property of another, or who, having charge or custody of an animal as owner or otherwise, overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink or shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates or cruelly kills an animal, or subjects an animal to needless suffering, or inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon the animal, or in any manner abuses an animal, or who cruelly drives, rides or otherwise uses the animal when unfit for labor is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
B. Any person who abandons an animal, or drops or leaves an animal on the street, road or highway, in a public place or on private property with intent to abandon is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. An animal also is abandoned when the owner, possessor or custodian fails to claim it from a boarding facility or veterinarian within ten days of the date a registered letter is received by such person from the boarding facility or veterinarian requesting that the owner, possessor or custodian reclaim the animal.
C. Any person who conducts a shooting event at which any person uses a firearm to shoot, kill or wound a live bird or animal that is tied, staked out, caged, held or restrained in any manner and used as a target to be fired at in such an event is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
D. The animal control officer may destroy a dog or cat impounded for cruelty to prevent the animal from further suffering.
(Prior code § 8-3-10)