I am only half serious when I say this, but maybe it is time for some brave lawmaker in some state or other... to file the bill if for no other reason than to turn some heads and force some real conversation.
It absolutely kills me to think that people in this day and age when there is so much help available and so many services available that people beat their kids and dogs (say pets)....obviously the most defenseless.
How many times in the decades have I done stories about child and animal abuse. And just this week two horribly disturbing stories out of New England, one in our own backyard illustrate the need for a societal readjustment and perhaps some harsher intervention.
In Torrington, thats west of the city of Hartford, a story where in one home 21 cats, three dead dogs and three live dogs were taken out of a home.
The owner was apparently uncooperative.In Holyoke, the well reported story of 15 dogs taken out of a Newton Street home this past week.
One did not make it.
The home they were taken out of, was condemned.
And no one knows about the owner.How many times are we going to tolerate what is going on in the world today.
It is not just animals.
Its not just kids.
Its human decency.
And, yes I will say it.
And, like I say I am only half way serious.
But maybe the time for it has come.
We license drivers...gun owners.
We license pets.Is it not time to register parents?
And to register pet owners?
We have rules of the road but not for the ability to be a parent--or a dog owner.Its not going to happen.
But in the absence of something that turns the world around,what do you want to try.
Because we can't go on like this.
(Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)