Sir, – The shooting of the cat on Love/Hate is perhaps an accurate portrayal of an amoral youth, born with the same potential as us all but due to his broken upbringing on the fringes of society has already become a vicious thug, a murder-in-waiting (Breaking News, October 7th).
There are numerous studies that demonstrate a very strong correlation between animal cruelty in early life and criminality/ familial abuse (to spouses, children) in later life. Our shock should be at society’s production of such a youth, not at this production’s portrayal of that youth, and our resolve as a society should be to identify and repair these youngsters before it is too late.
A separate but related point was that apparently this cat was anaesthetised to aid the filming of the scene. While modern veterinary anaesthesia in a clinic setting is incredibly safe, it does carry a risk. For a procedure to be ethical such a risk to the animal needs to be outweighed by the risk of doing nothing and/or the benefit of what needs to be done under anaesthetic. As there was clearly no benefit to the animal deriving from this anaesthetic – it being done merely to aid in the filming process – it would appear unethical for it to have been anaesthetised just for the sake of aiding filming.
I would hope that such practice will be discontinued and that in future any veterinary surgeon will refuse to administer an anaesthetic under such circumstances. – Yours, etc,
ALAN ROSSITER MVB,
Blacklion Pet Hospital,
Kindlestown Road,
Greystones, Co Wicklow.