Today's Animal Law.... whats the point?

I really enjoyed and took a lot from Dara Lovitz presentation on Wednesday. At the same time though it really frustrated me. Though there are laws in place like Prop 2 that help to prevent animal cruelty, dog fighting, veterinary malpractice and so forth, there are so many loop holes and insignificant punishments that it just feels like well what is the point. For example, the animal welfare act that protects animals has a clause in it that exempts pet stores from it. This basically means that a pet store can deny an animal its rights through neglect and abuse and not have repercussions. In addition to this when animal law actually does work to in favor of an animal the punishment for the wrong doing is very insignificant. In the case against pet food companies, pet owners that lost their animals only received market value price for the pet that they lost. Though the animal won the case they were considered property and not worth much. This discourages people from bringing cases to court such as this one because they only receive the market value, in animal law there are no emotional damages, so it becomes more expensive to bring someone to trail than you would be able to win back.
It truly frustrates me, it feels as if the animal laws in place now are almost pointless. From my experience at the Pennsylvania SPCA there are so many dogs that come in as cruelty/neglect cases, i met a dog that had terrible tissue damage on his neck and was extremely emaciated, in my opinion whoever did that should be jailed. If they were to do the same to another moral patient, lets say a child they would be facing serious jail time. I do not know the specifics of this dog's case, but from what i know of the law the owner probably got off with a fine. That isn't enough.