Pet lovers agree that animal cruelty is wrong, but that's about where the agreement ends.

There is little consensus on how to prevent it.

State lawmakers are considering increasing the penalty from misdemeanor to felony for extreme pet cruelty, such as starving or mutilating a pet, but time is running out in this session. The proposal will fail unless the Legislature acts by Friday.

The disagreement begins with defining "pet" and "cruelty." It's a more complex task than one might expect.

Dogs and cats are pets, but what about pot-bellied pigs? Is cockfighting cruel but not killing a chicken to eat? For that matter, how do you resolve the fact that some people see their pets as members of their families, while others see the same domesticated animals as food?

The cockfighting issue is so controversial that lawmakers decided to remove all poultry from the pet definition to avoid going up against cockfighting proponents who have blocked increased animal cruelty penalties in the past.

Poultry is included in the "livestock" definition along with cows, horses and pigs — even pigs people keep as pets.

However, even though the bill primarily covers cats and dogs, it faces an uphill battle. Opponents are taking an interesting approach by offering amendments to expand the definition to include rats, so that people would go to jail for using rat traps.

Settling on a definition of "mutilation" is also problematic.

Spaying and neutering are not mutilations. But what about more controversial surgeries such as cropping the ears or clipping tails of show dogs? How about declawing a cat or debarking a dog?

DEFINING MUTILATION

Sen. Clayton Hee, who introduced the bill to increase animal cruelty penalties, said the definition of mutilation may hinge on whether an operation is performed by a veterinarian under anesthesia or done somewhere else.

"I presume if it's a medical treatment or activity, then it's done within the laws governing the humane treatment of animals," Hee said. "When it's done outside of a vet's office, it becomes an issue of mutilation."

Rep. Blake Oshiro said it's these kinds of things that will make it difficult to see the bill passed. "The devil will be in the details in terms of some of the lesser offenses or definitions," he said.

EXTREME ARGUMENTS

Opponents won't recognize that there are lesser offenses. They throw up extreme arguments, like the questions asked by a dog breeder convicted of 55 counts of animal cruelty: "Can you imagine going to jail for five years for kicking your dog?" asked James Montgomery. "Let's say you neglected to take care of the worms in the dog. Do you get charged with a felony?"

That is not the intent of the current version of Senate Bill 1665 HD1, some lawmakers say.

Hee said the bill would address undeniable abuse. "Usually their ribs are sticking out. You can tell because they're flea-infested, rail thin. They're starving. That's not difficult to understand," he said.

Pamela Burns, executive director of the Hawaiian Humane Society, said she thought Montgomery's violations — keeping animals in poor conditions — might not have risen to the level of a felony.

She's thinking of more severe cruelty, like recent cases where owners left dogs to starve and die on the ends of their chains in the yard, or when a man stopped a neighbor's dog from barking by killing it with a machete, or when an arsonist set fire to a barn knowing there were horses inside.

'HUMANS COME FIRST'

Burns argues that people who abuse animals are more likely to commit violence against vulnerable people, like children and seniors. "The victims vary, but it's the same kind of mentality," she said. "How we treat animals is an extension of our own humanity."

That's one of the areas where opponents take issue, like Rep. Alex Sonson, a member of the conference committee. He thinks that raising the penalties will put maiming animals on the same level as child abuse.

"We should treat them nice, they're our pets, they're our companions, but we're on an island and you know that humans come first," he said. "If we're going to elevate animals, we're lowering human beings," he said.

Michael Blasko, who operates a no-kill shelter in Wai'anae, said he hopes lawmakers have a meeting of minds before Friday, their last chance to agree to a pet-cruelty bill this session.

"There are those that are abusing animals beyond every stretch of the imagination," he said. "If it's a felony then they won't just walk out of there with a slap on their wrist."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.