Humboldt Advocates for Victims of Abuse

  Loretta Gledhill, LSW, HUMBOLDT AVA Advocate   Unconditional love, support and validation.  We all need it and so often we find it in our furry friends, our fur babies.    Pets to include dogs, cats, chickens, goats, horses and more all offer their humans unconditional support and love in a world that can often be unkind.  Pets are a part of our homes and families.  Pet owners often form very strong emotional bonds with their companion animals.          Humboldt AVA recognizes that perpetrators of domestic violence often harm pets as a way to intimidate and hurt their victim, gain power and control and/or force their victims to stay. Documented cases of DV report that the perpetrators of domestic violence may threaten the family pets, even actually harm or kill the animals in order to assert dominance over their victim.     According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty t...