Lost child Photo: Getty Images
In Australia ‘treating our pets like family’ is more than just a saying – we genuinely love our pets and treat them as family members. Our pets live indoors with us, in our lounge rooms and on our beds. We give them 21st century resources, behavioural and medical care, and in return they give us companionship and unconditional love. When the economy takes a downturn, the pet industry is one of the only that continues to grow – and we spend $4.6 BILLION dollars annually on them.
And yet, the system we believe is a ‘safety net’ for our much loved family members, should they become lost, is nothing of the sort.
A pet who has only known care and a life indoors, is completely vulnerable if they are to wander away, not unlike a young child who has somehow escaped their home. However, our treatment of them could not be more different…
South Grafton couple Kylie and Will Poole were shattered to learn of the horrific death of their son Ben on Monday night.
At around 7.30pm they noticed Ben (4) and his sister Claire (7) were missing.
After more than an hour of searching in the car and on foot, Mr Poole and a friend ran into police who told them both children had been run over and one had been shot by police because he was too badly injured.
Ben was taken to the morgue and put in cold storage.
“We flagged down a policeman who had been patrolling the area. We showed him a picture of Ben and Claire, and he was able to tell us he’d had to shoot Ben because of his injuries,” Ms Poole said.
“We phoned the after hours number on Monday night and they told us to be at the morgue at 8.30am and we would be able to pick him up.”
“We were there waiting at 8.30am, but the Council Officer told us he’d gone already,” Ms Poole said.
“I told him I needed to know where my child had gone. I needed to say my goodbyes to him.
“He just said that under his contract he couldn’t say where they’d taken Ben.”
Ms Poole said a friend told her council disposed of dead children at its local landfill site and went there to see if they could find Ben.
“They told me it was impossible to get him because he was covered with tonnes of stuff,” Ms Poole said. “But it was good because I knew I was near him and could sort of say goodbye.”
The couple’s attempt to piece together Ben’s final hours did not bring any satisfaction.
“When we went back to the pound the Council Officer told me to stop ringing around because I wouldn’t find out anything and would only confuse myself. He told me to ‘just get over it’.”
The couple admit Ben was not carrying any identification, but believe council staff could have been more understanding of their feelings.
“We loved Ben. He was our son.”
Council acting general manager, Mary Smith said council staff arrived at work to find the dead child in cold storage, with no idea where it had come from or who the parents were.
“If the child had been identified they would have immediately contacted the parents and worked out how they wanted it to be handled,” she said.
Instead, sending the child’s body at the rubbish tip without delay, seems like the most appropriate course of action.
“We are certainly sorry this has happened. It has been distressing for everyone.”
“Parents need to be responsible when it comes to fencing and identification.”
The story above seems nauseating when we talk about someone’s child being injured, shot with a gun rather than taken to the emergency room, then having their body dumped without any chance for someone to come forward to claim them.
But this is exactly how the animal protection system – a system we pay millions of dollars annually for – treats our pets.
Over the weekend, South Grafton couple Emily Munro and Ashley Unwin lost their dog Spike. Spike was shot dead when police found him injured. His body was dumped despite their frantic efforts to claim him. And then his owners were told to stop asking questions and to simply ‘get over it’ by rangers.
This is our animal management system. The one that kill-apologists defend as doing ‘all they can’ to save lives. The one who we believe is staffed by animal lovers. The one that blames the community for the killing.
This is how they treat our family members. We wouldn’t accept such callous treatment of our children. Why do we continue to accept it for our companion animals?
See also: Why YOU need to care about our failing pound system
A while ago the local ranger in Gloucester took all of the dogs that were at the pound and shot them and dumped their bodies at the local tip, so somehow I don’t think the current animal protection policies are good enough/effective enough.