MiddletownJournal.com

A 14-year-old Middletown boy wraps a cat in paper towels doused with alcohol and sets it on fire.

Three Franklin High School football players shoot and kill a pair of baby skunks with a paintball gun during a camping trip at Hueston Woods in Oxford.

A Middletown woman leaves her 8-year-old Rottweiler in a cage on her porch for several sweltering days while she traveled to Tennessee.

An 11-month-old Labrador retriever is found at a Trenton home tied to a tree with a cable embedded one and a half inches into its neck.

These are just a handful of the animal cruelty cases that have appeared on court dockets in Butler, Warren and Preble counties during the past year. Nationally, there are more than 1,200 cases of animal abuse or neglect in the legal system so far this year — 30 of which are in Ohio, according to the Web site www.Pet-Abuse.com.

And while the number of animal cruelty cases appearing before judges seems to be on the rise locally, the punishments often don't fit the crimes, some animal rights advocates say.

"It takes a while for laws to be updated and fines to be increased, but hopefully it will be soon," said Kristin Dejournett, a cruelty case worker with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The case involving Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who recently pleaded guilty to financing dogfighting, has increased awareness of animal cruelty "exponentially," Dejournett said.

State Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester Twp., said the legislature would be giving serious consideration to toughing laws on animal cruelty. Cates authored a bill currently in the senate that takes a look at puppy mills and monitors how dogs used for breeding are treated.