Can you be arrested for denying your pet vet care? Here’s what NC law says.
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- A Raleigh man was charged with three felony animal cruelty counts after refusing surgery.
- North Carolina law defines animal cruelty to include omission of care that causes.
- Duke’s Bill, introduced in 2025, would outline minimum veterinary care standards.
The arrest of a Raleigh man for allegedly denying his dog emergency surgery highlights a facet of North Carolina law that classifies failure to provide such care as animal cruelty.
Ernest Lamont Yarborough Jr., 27, was charged with three counts of felony animal cruelty last week after police said he failed to provide surgery for his pregnant female bulldog, leading to the deaths of her three unborn puppies.
Yarborough had taken his dog in June to an emergency veterinarian, who advised surgery to save the pregnant dog and her puppies, CBS17 reported. But Yarborough allegedly left with the dog and chose not to pursue the surgery.
“A vet did a recheck and confirmed there was a puppy that was stuck and that she would need emergency surgery,” an assistant district attorney said in court. “He still refused the vet care. When the adult female dog was taken from vet care, all the puppies were dead at that point.”
As of Tuesday, an attorney for Yarborough had not responded to a request for comment.
North Carolina’s animal cruelty laws not only define abuse as an act of cruelty, such as maiming or causing intentional injury, but also as an omission of care or neglect “causing or permitting unjustifiable pain, suffering or death.”
And according to Raleigh animal rights lawyer Calley Gerber, that delineation is key in requiring pet owners to care for sick or injured animals.
“A dog can’t get themselves medical care,” she said. “So if you’ve been told your dog needs to be seen by a vet, and then you don’t, you can’t just allow an animal to continue to suffer.”
‘You cannot let a sentient creature suffer’
Gerber, the founding attorney of Gerber Animal Law Center in Raleigh, said felony charges for animal cruelty are defined by acts committed maliciously, which she said can be difficult for prosecutors to prove.
But failing to provide veterinary care for a pup isn’t always done with malice, according to Gerber. Prices for veterinary care and pet insurance continue to climb, and for pet owners who may be unable to afford thousands of dollars for an unforeseen emergency surgery, those health issues could mean surrendering the dog to adoption, or in extreme cases, turning to euthanasia.
“Yes, it is a very privileged thing to say, ‘Well, you just need to take them to the vet,’ because there are a lot of people for whom that’s not an option,” Gerber said. “But the flip side is that you cannot let a sentient creature suffer because you don’t have the means to get care. You need to surrender them for someone else to help.”
NC bill could enhance protections against animal cruelty
Protections could be growing in North Carolina for providing an animal with adequate veterinary care. A new piece of legislation could provide more protections and explicit definitions to aid law enforcement in identifying and prosecuting animal abuse and neglect.
Duke’s Bill, first introduced in 2025 and currently under review in the legislature, would outline the minimum standards for adequate care. That includes protections for “appropriate veterinary treatment, including emergency veterinarian treatment.”
The bill would require vet treatment “to stabilize a life-threatening condition, alleviate suffering, prevent further disease transmission, or prevent further disease progression” for animals.
And those stipulations could help first responders to save animal lives faster by giving them grounds to recognize inadequate care, Gerber said.
“And that’s what you have to be able to show: unjustifiable physical suffering, pain or death,” she said. “Obviously we don’t want to wait until an animal is dead to be able to charge people, so something like this would be really helpful.”
