Cruelty !

This week Australia was shocked by an instance of unmitigated cruelty. " Rookie ", an eleven year old border collie was a star performer in the Corrective Services department's fifty strong team of sniffer dogs, trained to sniff out drugs in prisons.
Sniffer dogs and their partners form a strong bond and work as a team - but such dogs do not get annual leave and when Rookie's handler took time off this faithful servant of the government was left under the control of another person.
This was a disaster. Rookie was locked in the back of a van and left in the hot sun in the prison officers car par for five long days. It is likely that Rookie survived no more than one day, but suffered an agonising and lonely death from heat and dehydration.
The offending officer has been charged and in due course will face a court - with the prospect of a maximum fine of $ 25,000 and two years gaol.
As is the case with courts, it is unlikely that the maximum sentence will be imposed but this act of indifference, abandonment and cruelty raises an issue that has not been addressed by the government.
There are people in the community that have no affinity with animals and from time to time we hear of dogs starving to death in suburban backyards, and horses left in bare paddocks without water or a skerrick of feed.
In such cases the courts usually inflict a fine, but the offender is free to take control of another animal - and repeat the offence.
We have registers for paedophiles to see that they have no contact with children. It is about time that offenders who have exhibited gross cruelty to animals were placed on a similar register, preventing them from ever owning an animal or having an animal in their care.
Rookie's awful suffering and death deserves such legislation to be enacted !