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By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

Petland is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons, this time in connection with a multistate outbreak of a superbug that has sickened 30 people in 13 states.

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block

In recent years, understanding our firm and absolute opposition to horse slaughter in the United States and to the cruelty and inefficiency of the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro work, frustrated members of Congress have been pressing the Humane Society of the United States and the Humane Society Legislative Fund to advance a solution-focused proposal. And now, with the ASPCA, Return to Freedom and other groups, we’ve done so.

For most Americans, dogs are loving companions and family members. But there’s a small and dying industry, hanging on by a thread, that crams dogs into cages for most of their lives, and forces them to run on tracks for entertainment and gambling, sustaining broken bones, heart attacks, drug overdoses, and other injuries.

The State of Michigan Court of Appeals this week sided with wolf protection advocates, and declared unconstitutional the Michigan legislature’s attempt to force a trophy-hunting and trapping season on the state’s small population of wolves. The ruling is the latest blow to the blatant and outrageous power grab by politicians to subvert the will of the people of Michigan and their decision-making authority.

Federal lawmakers have concluded their work for 2015, and will pick up where they left off in mid-January. Washington saw plenty of gridlock this year, but there were also several important victories for animal protection, including bills that made it over the finish line or have the momentum to do so next year. Here’s my rundown of the advances for animals during the 2015 session:

Omnibus (Consolidated Appropriations Act) Highlights:

In the mid-1980s, only four states—Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island—had felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty to animals. But today, all 50 states have such a policy, and there’s a national consensus that vicious acts of animal abuse and torment should be treated as a serious crime.

A bipartisan team of lawmakers today introduced federal legislation to stop the butchering of America’s companion horses and the peddling of their doped up meat to foreign consumers.

With fragmented populations numbering just 5,000 or so wolves in the lower 48 states—and so many of the survivors having lost family members as a consequence of traps and guns—these iconic canids face more threats to their survival than ever.