Was a killer and rapist's love for his cat a tiny sign of some humanity? Photo / Sarah Ivey

Was a killer and rapist's love for his cat a tiny sign of some humanity? Photo / Sarah Ivey

I don't rage against animals. Anger towards humans is understandable. Who hasn't felt 4-in-the-morning frustration when the baby won't stop crying, you've been up for hours, the other kids are soon awake and you're about to snap? But there's a line across which most of us do not cross.

We don't throw the baby against the wall, use the spouse as a punching bag, whack the children awake just because we feel like rubbish.

But animals? Unless they attack and we defend ourselves, how can a human deliberately torture an animal? Put puppies in sacks with stones and cast them into a river? Dump the family cat in the country to fend for itself? Set kittens alight for fun? Leave dogs chained for days with no food or water? Starve horses and calves to skin and bone until they must be put down? I love animals so much these stories make me cry.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I like my meat to have a happy life before it's slaughtered, so I raise my own pork and eggs. And remember, animals too eat animals. Fish eat fish. Birds kill lambs, snatch chicks and baby rabbits. The animal kingdom is brutish and life is short.

I'd often observed that people who had no feelings of kindness towards animals treated their fellow humans with similar callousness.

Indeed, more than a decade ago in Britain, child welfare authorities began exchanging information with the RSPCA because they realised it was more than a coincidence carers who sexually or physically abused their children were also likely to be reported for neglecting or abusing their pets.

But life is so unpredictable. Last month, along came a story I found ineffably sad, and which also reminded me there is no black and white when it comes to human nature.

Gary McKinley, now 48, was sentenced to four years' jail for stabbing a fellow inmate, Peter Biddle, in Rimutaka Prison. McKinley, the Dominion Post reported, was being bullied and taunted by Biddle about a little stray cat he'd befriended and named Mouse, which sometimes slept in his cell. Biddle scared McKinley's cat away and threatened to kill it, boasting that he was particularly skilled at brutally annihilating cats. Brave fellow.

To compound the situation, a woman McKinley thought of as his partner had recently died, and he couldn't find her grave.

So on Boxing Day McKinley caught Mouse, hid her, and stabbed Biddle seriously enough to warrant a jail sentence, but not badly enough to cause lasting damage.

He told authorities: "I would do anything to protect the cat. It's all I've got."