Article: Footnote: How often do domestic violence and animal abuse occur together?

By DOUG ERICKSON | derickson@madison.com | 608-252-6149 | Posted: Sunday, November 7, 2010 8:52 am

Sun Prairie man charged with killing wife's dog
Q: A Sun Prairie man was charged last week with felony animal mistreatment for allegedly cutting the throat of his wife's dog and letting it bleed to death. He's also charged with battering his wife. How often do domestic violence and animal abuse occur together?
A: In the mid-1990s, researchers at Utah State University surveyed the largest shelter for battered women in each of 49 states and the District of Columbia.
Seventy-four percent of battered women seeking shelter in the previous year had pets, and of those, 71 percent reported their partner either threatened to harm or harmed or killed their pet.
"It's highly correlated," said Shannon Barry, executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, which operates Dane County's only domestic violence shelter.
"Batterers know that for many victims who are isolated from friends and family members, their connection to their pet is sort of their last support system," she said.
A 1995 survey of 72 women seeking shelter for domestic violence in Wisconsin found 86 percent of the women had pets, and in 80 percent of those cases, the batterer abused the pets, said Megan Senatori, co-founder and president of the Sheltering Animals of Abuse Victims Program.
The local nonprofit organization provides emergency shelter for the animals of domestic abuse victims for up to 90 days, primarily through a network of foster care volunteers, Senatori said.
"We've heard from countless people that we're the reason they left an abusive situation because they had a safe place to put their animals," she said. The program has sheltered about 90 animals in seven years, including horses, goats, dogs, cats, birds and an iguana, she said.
For more information on sheltering animals, go to www.saavprogram.org. The DAIS 24-hour crisis line is 608-251-4445.