Editorial: Cruelty to animals is inexcusable

Sue Darling, left, and Wim Julicher of Julicher Estate with their new puppies, Jack and Sophie, which were found abandoed on a grass verge of a rural Martinborough Road.

Cruelty to animals is hard to fathom at any time but just how heartless do you have to be to discard two little puppies in a battened-down cardboard box on the side of a country road?

That's what happened last weekend in Martinborough when a woman out for a leisurely stroll in the countryside heard desperate whimpering and went to investigate.

She found the distressed puppies in poor condition and totally unable to free themselves from what would certainly have been their cardboard coffin had she not chanced on them.

The woman took them home and later checked them in with South Wairarapa District Council who have pledged to look after them for the statutory week before trying to find them new, loving homes.

But that was an action not taken until the finder had attempted to interest the SPCA only to be told from outside the district to contact the Wairarapa branch.

As we all should know the SPCA shelter is no more in Masterton, so even if the dumper of the puppies had the heart to try and offload them in preference to abandoning them he, or she, couldn't have delivered them to the safety of the SPCA shelter.

And that's what should set alarm bells ringing among every right-thinking Wairarapa animal lover.

Is this dastardly deed the first of many, presuming it is the first since the SPCA closure? Let's certainly hope not.

Even without the benefit of an animal shelter it is hard to figure why anyone would want to secure a cardboard box carrying puppies and simply dump it on a grass verge, likely subjecting them to a lingering and unhappy end.

There are ways of dealing with unwanted animal arrivals far more humanely than what happened in Martinborough.

I sometimes wonder if those among us who are callous enough to dump trapped puppies in far-off places would be capable of assigning the same sort of fate to unloved children. Sounds preposterous, I know, but the lessons of history show us that there have been plenty of people capable of doing just that.

To close, I can only say it is my hope the two dumped puppies now get what they deserve - another chance at life in a loving environment.