A direction worth going in?

Can anyone explain why we need to pass a test to drive a motorcycle, we have to buy a licence to watch the television, and yet we are free to purchase and abuse as many dogs and horses cats etc as the whim takes us?I am basically a bit of an anarchist…….I don’t like rules or anyone telling me how to run my life, but there are some areas where a little control is sensible. I used to target shoot….nothing living you understand…….just used to blaze away at targets from a hundred yards or so. I had a firearms certificate and on that a list of guns that I possessed. The police could turn up on a whim and ask to my ‘ticket’ then compare what was supposed to be on my ticket to what was in my gun safe. That linked the firearm to me and made me responsible for its safety and security.Could we not have a system whereby we has an animal certificate; on which could be listed the animals you own, the registered address where they are kept and some basic details like their age and any health issues. This certificate would be renewable yearly at a small cost, with the proceeds going to help animal welfare organisations such as the RSPCA.

I know it can be argued we already have Horse passports, but with an animal certificate the weight of responsibility for care of the animal would be put more squarely on the purchaser of that animal. The buyer for example being compelled to at least take a basic animal care proficiency test before being given ‘space on their ticket’ to purchase for example a dog or a pony . I can hear screams of protest about cost: Well a cost of twenty quid a year is not even a night out down the pub these days, and I think animal welfare is at least worth that……I would be happy to pay four times that come to think of it.……… if it saved an animal suffering ( If someone cannot afford an animal licence then surely they cannot really afford an animal)
If we want to stamp out cruelty and abuse than the enemies are ignorance and lack of accountability……Sometimes I find it difficult to believe we are in the twenty-first century when the cruelty that is inflicted on animals seems to belong more to the middle ages. A great deal of this cruelty is not being inflicted by the scientific community using animals in research, nor is it being inflicted by the food industry at marshalling yards and abattoirs. It is being inflicted by ordinary British folk who have worldwide reputation for loving their animals, yet seem over and over again to be failing them through ignorance and stupidity. We live in a society of high taxes………most of which I disagree with……..but a visit to Ada Cole/Redwings or Battersea dogs home (where I did a couple of the saddest days work experience I could have imagined) and a glimpse at what unregulated animal ownership leads to………Perhaps it is time to force people to be more responsible.Would it really help to stamp out abuse?......well if we were all made to attend a animal care class before buying it would weed out the 'puppy for Christmas brigade, as they would have to prepare not just buy on an impulse. Also if we had to present a 'ticket to buy/keep an animal it could be subject to endorsements and bans like a driving licence. Keeping an animal could be then seen as a privilidge rather than a right, a change of attitude that could only be beneficial.

We are all bricks in the building: take away one brick and the chances ar it won't be noticed. take away a dozen and the owner may feel a draft, take away a thousand and the whole rotten edifice will come tumbling down. Perhaps what this society needs is for us all to have just a touch more belief in owr own power to change things. It is not a perfect world but surely we should all strive to make it one? Apathy is the scourge of modern society, it sees governments elected by less than half of the population and politics have become a dirty word. The power of politics is what we all make of it.....there is nothing stopping any of us approaching our MP and asking him/her to raise a quesion in the house about this issue, it is the legal right of every british citizen. There is nothing preventing us finding an MP willing to table a 'Private Members Bill' on this either......Nothing except perhaps the will to do it.....pull out enough bricks: it's a principal British democracy was founded on.