Who are the real dumb animals?
MARGARET WENTE

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Which one would you rather lynch? The guy whose fiancée bled to death after she was clawed by his captive tiger? Or the guy who cut his puppy's ears off because he wanted a cool-looking dog?

The two offences are quite different. One was a tragic accident and one was outright cruelty. But it's pretty clear that neither of these idiots is fit to own an animal. Okay, so the death penalty might be a bit much. Maybe we could just cut off their ears and keep them in a chain-link cage.

Unfortunately, in many parts of Canada, the laws governing animal cruelty and exotic species are so weak that we can't do much about these sorry cases. In many provinces, including Ontario and British Columbia, anyone can buy a tiger and open up a roadside zoo. No law prevents people from breeding and selling jungle cats as pets.

It is not necessarily illegal to bash stray cats to death, or keep caimans (they're related to alligators) to guard your grow-op. "You can buy a hippo and put him in your pool," says Hugh Coghill of the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Maybe I shouldn't mention that because, as Mr. Coghill says, "some idiot will do it."

Many of our animal-welfare laws are antique. They date from the horse-and-buggy days, and they reflect the thinking of the times. Although various reforms have been in the works for years, they have a way of dying before they become law. It's not that politicians are indifferent. They just have more important things to do.

Kim Carlton, proprietor of Siberian Magic, the tiger farm in B.C., used to take his tigers to the mall, where, for 40 bucks, you could get your picture taken with them. The rest of the time they lived in chain-link cages measuring 12 feet square. The SPCA had been after him for years, and repeatedly warned the authorities that the tigers were a danger to the public. They got no response. "It simply wasn't a priority," says Marcie Moriarty of BC's SPCA.

Tanya Dumstrey-Soos, Mr. Carlton's fiancée, mistook his animals for overgrown kitty cats. She was reaching through the cage to pat one of them good night when it patted back and slashed a major artery in her leg. She bled to death as her terrified six-year-old son looked on. "I kept telling her not to wear a dress," says the grieving Mr. Carlton, which sounds a bit like blaming the victim to me. The tiger was put down and, now, he says, he's grieving the death of two loved ones.

"It's archaic that we don't have regulations about who can keep exotic wildlife," says Ms. Moriarty.

The German shepherd-Rottweiler puppy was rescued from an apartment in Windsor, Ont., after a neighbour called the SPCA. The ears of dogs like these are often clipped to make them look more menacing and, evidently, the owner decided on a do-it-yourself job. The dog's owner can't be charged until the SPCA can prove animal abuse without a reasonable doubt. The stiffest penalty that can be imposed is a six-month sentence and a two-year ban on pet ownership. Legally, the owner can get the dog back while the SPCA is still investigating.

"Ontario is way behind other provinces," says Mr. Coghill. He can't even inspect puppy mills or pet shops or private zoos without a firm case and a search warrant. "They can tell me to get stuffed," he says.

You don't have to be an animal-rights wing nut to see that something's wrong here. Nor is it all that hard to fix. In many cases, a few changes in provincial legislation would do the trick. It would be nice to toughen up the laws before another naive animal-lover gets mauled by a tiger, or the idiot who cut off the puppy's ears decides to get another puppy. Reasonable animal-welfare laws are a political no-brainer. They're also an important thing to do.