The first reactions to the extreme case of animal cruelty which took place this weekend were incredulity. People could not fathom out how someone could be possessed to kill a puppy and nail it to a cross upside down. It is just a terrible act of cruelty which cannot be justified in any form or manner. But there is more to this case than meets the eye.

We have seen animals, in particular dogs, being abused and mostly, through sheer ignorance. We saw the cases of Star and Gaia where owners wanted to get rid of the animals because they were sick, and killed them in a terrible manner. One was shot and buried alive, while the other was wrapped inside a bin liner and dumped in a skip. These are cases of cruelty to animals. Both men decided they did not want to pay for a vet, and then could not even bring themselves to give the animals a humane death.

But this case is different. Whoever perpetrated this crime is a severely disturbed individual who left a note with the dead pup. In essence, the note said that he, the perpetrator, had suffered more hardship in his life than the dog had.

Well. What can be said? Even to the untrained, it is clear that the person who did this is severely disturbed and in need of psychiatric help. This is not something that someone normal would do. This, although hideous, is a ‘cry for help’. It is abundantly clear that someone decided that life’s trials and tribulations were too much for them and they took out their frustrations on a poor puppy. That a note was left with it, in a prominent place, shows that this person is seeking attention, and could in fact have done it with a subconscious desire to get caught. There is also the possibility of it being a sick joke, and that is even worse, but at face value, this act seems to have been perpetrated by someone who is not thinking straight.

Recent history has shown us that the vast majority of animal abusers are male. As we mentioned above, the cases prior to this were carried out by middle-aged men who know no better. It is no excuse, but the situation is what it is. In this case though, the police and the authorities need to look a bit deeper.

There were other cases where such acts were carried out by teenagers. ‘Boy Monster’, ran our headline some eight years ago, when a teenager had brutally killed a dog after torturing it for hours with a blow torch. Perhaps we are looking at something similar here. Whatever the case may be, mental instability does not excuse this crime in any way and one hopes that the police catch whoever committed the act. From there, they need psychiatric help and they do also need to appear in court. When one tortures an animal in this way, although ill, the perpetrator shows a streak of evil and criminal behaviour which cannot go unpunished. If caught, the priority is psychiatric evaluation to establish whether the person is a danger to the community. From there, they need treatment and then, must be charged in court to pay for what has been done.