Posted By Farquhar, Ruth
Posted 6 days ago
So what happens if they catch the person or persons who shot a cat in the head numerous times with a pellet gun?
What happens if they charge the people in Alberta who microwaved a cat, or the person who left the cat Simba out to freeze to death?
Unfortunately, horrified as most of us are reading these kinds of things, we would be even more horrified at the lax penalties given to those who perpetrate these acts of cruelty on a living creature. Right now, our laws regarding animal cruelty are a joke. If convicted, you could be fined $2,000 and/or six months in jail. But have you ever heard of a judge giving the max to someone who deliberately tortured or killed a defenceless animal?
Lately, there has been story after story in the news about animals being abused and it has felt surreal to me. After hearing about the cat being shot in the head (a vet said someone probably held it down while another person shot it), a story started circulating around the Island about a puppy outside at Manitoulin Secondary School being kicked around like a football. I spoke to Principal Laurie Zahnow, who said she saw one student kick a puppy, and she stopped him, but at that time the puppy wasn't hurt. She and another teacher talked to the student about animal cruelty. Zahnow added that if she knew of any students injuring an animal, she would call the police. This puppy did end up at the local vet, where it has since found a home. But even one student kicking a dog raises questions about what our kids are thinking and why are we not giving serious consequences to students who inflict any cruelty to animals?
And then we have the property owners or farmers who feel they can shoot dogs because they are running on their property. To be fair, most farmers do not shoot them, most don't want to shoot them. Most farmers I know love their family's pets.
Last year on the Island, a couple's puppy, called Moose, was taken from the end of their driveway and is believed to have been shot. Unfortunately, the owner of this beautiful eight-month-old Pyrenees was made to feel like she was the one who had done something wrong, that by pushing people to find out exactly what happened to her dog and writing a letter to the press, she was branding all farmers with the same brush.
All Shelagh Saul ever wanted was to find out what happened to her pet. I ask you to put yourself in her shoes. If you had a puppy you loved and it disappeared and all you heard were rumours about it being shot, how would you feel? What would you do?
I wouldn't leave one stone unturned until I found out exactly what had happened.
More recently, there was a story out of Uxbridge in which a farmer had shot two golden retrievers that had run from their nearby home. I have never heard of golden retrievers attacking any livestock before, but this antiquated law, which dates back to the 1920s, allowed that farmer to kill these dogs without any proof that they were even near his livestock.
It is fairly common knowledge that children who are cruel to animals will go on to be abusive to their spouses and their children. One study has shown that 61 per cent of women staying in shelters had pets harmed or killed by an abusive partner and 48 per cent delayed leaving the situation for fear their partners would harm their pet. And I would bet good money that a man who kills animals for the "fun" of it, is someone who may also hurt women and children. After all, to him they are defenceless and he gets some kind of misguided sense of power out of it.
So what can we do? We can push our MPs to change our old laws and not just add to them. There are two private member's bills before the House of Commons. The one by (Liberal) Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland, Bill C-373, is the best of the two. Not only does it change the antiquated laws, it also makes the penalties much more severe.
The other bill by Senator John Bryden leaves the old laws in place and just adds stricter penalties. It will be just the same with loopholes and it leaves out stray cats and dogs. Unfortunately it is supported by the conservatives and probably will get passed.
Let your MP know you expect more from the laws against animal cruelty. My sympathies go out to anyone who has lost a pet to cruelty, or a pet that has been shot for no reason. I know how grief stricken I was when my cat died of an illness. I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose a pet because someone decided they could hurt it for no other reason than they could.
- Ruth Farquhar is a Manitoulin Island-based freelance writer.
Article ID# 907228
The Sudbury Star
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