TYLER: COULD THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR DOG TOO?

It should never happen to any dog. This evidently happened somewhere in the UK. But similar things have happened in many places.

Amidst scenes of great distress, "Three year old crossbred dog ‘Tyler’ was forcibly removed from his home at 7.30 am on December 20th 1991. When owner Debbie answered her door, dressed in her nightgown, there were at least 5 arresting officers, two wearing protective clothing and carrying catch poles. Tyler was dragged from the bed where he had been sleeping upstairs with a 6 year old child, his neck bleeding as the catch poles tightened in the struggle. When his owner began to obstruct the arrest of her dog she was restrained, forcibly led away down the street in her nightgown and arrested, her dog was driven away in the back of a van.

Justice Denied: Farewell to Rehtaeh Parsons, Farewell to Jeff de la Rosa

Today is "Ruination Day", the 14th of April, the day Abraham Lincoln was shot 148 years ago. An incomprehensible act, like the ones I mourn today.

Today, like every day since last Sunday, I am so saddened by the death of Rehtaeh Parsons: saddened, angered, shocked, aggrieved. One look at 17 year-old Rehtaeh’s open-hearted, beautiful face, captured in the many images so generously and lovingly shared by her family, is all it takes to know what a sensitive young woman she was, what a big heart she had. The stories of her compassion and love for all living things are hardly necessary additions. But those stories abound. And one involves Brindi.