(A) Cruelty shall mean and include every act whereby unnecessary or unjustifiable pain, suffering or death is caused, permitted or allowed to continue where there is reasonable remedy or relief. Acts of cruelty shall include, but not be limited to, the following:
(1) Whoever willfully or maliciously kills, abuses, maims, or disfigures any animal or willfully or maliciously administers poison to any animal or exposes any poisonous substance with the intent that the poisonous substance shall be taken and swallowed by such animal shall be deemed in violation of this section.
(2) Whoever overloads, overdrives, tortures, torments, or deprives an animal of its necessary sustenance or shelter; beats, mutilates, or kills any animal or causes such to be done; or carries in or upon a vehicle or otherwise any animal in a cruel or inhumane manner shall be deemed in violation of this section.
(3) Whoever confines any animal and fails to supply it with sufficient quantities of wholesome food and water, whoever keeps any animal in any enclosure without wholesome exercise and change of air or whoever abandons any animal to die shall be deemed in violation of this section.
(4) No person shall:
(a) Own, possess, keep or train any animal with the intent that such animal shall be engaged in an exhibition of fighting;
(b) Build, make, maintain, or keep a pit on premises owned by him or her or occupied by him or her or allow a pit to be built, made, maintained or kept on such premises for the purposes of an exhibition of animal fighting;
(c) In any manner encourage, instigate, promote or assist in an exhibition of animal fighting or intentional combat; or
(d) Charge admission; be an assistant, umpire or participant; or be present as a spectator to any exhibition of animal fighting or combat.
(B) Any Police Officer or other officer or agent of the town empowered to act by law may impound any animal found to be cruelly treated.
(C) It shall be the duty of the owner to maintain in a clean and sanitary condition and free from extreme and unreasonable objectionable odor all structures, pens, yards, and areas adjacent thereto wherein any animal is kept.
(D) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to prohibit the humane slaughter of livestock or poultry in conformance with all applicable rules and regulations of the State Board of Health and the United States Food and Drug Administration.
(E) Nothing in this section shall prohibit hunting or fishing, as permitted by the law of the state and the rules and regulations of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
(F) Nothing in this section shall prohibit the use of commercially sold poisons for the control of rats, mice, groundhogs, moles or other similar rodents as long as the person using the poisons uses reasonable care to ensure that neither domestic animals nor livestock are exposed to the poisons.
(Ord. 2015-03, passed 4-9-15) Penalty, see § 13.02