Nowadays, all fifty States have enacted some form of criminal statute to protect animals although with differences in the level of protection, in the species protected, or in the type of foreseen penalties (from small faults, “petty misdemeanors,” to serious offenses, “felonies.”) And, what is more important, only in America the proposal to suppress the property status of animals has been seriously considered and even submitted to the ballot, as it happened in Rhode Island. This state submitted to the electorate the switching of the status of domestic animals from “ownership” to “guardianship,” and it became the first state in the US (in addition to the cities of Boulder, Colorado, and Berkeley, California) in enacting legislation recognizing individuals as guardians of their companion animals. Not owners. On the other hand, only some US Law Schools such as Harvard, Rutgers, or Georgetown (among others) provide courses on animal rights as part of the curriculum, and only in the US there is a current strong and serious debate at legal scholarship level about the implications of attributing legal personality and fundamental rights to animals, especially apes.