SHARE: How could anyone do this to an innocent animal?

This post contains disturbing accounts of animal cruelty and may be distressing for some readers.

She was only six-months old and none of us can imagine what she went through during those six short months.

We hope she had been loved and cared for.

We hope a family had given her a place in their hearts and a role in their lives.

But we fear the truth is actually a long way from that.

All we know for sure is that her death was unimaginably cruel and intolerably painful.

She was a female fawn and black Staffordshire bull terrier pup.

She was wearing a red collar.

And tied to that collar with a red rope was an orange brick.

The brick was what anchored the puppy in a waterway as she died in a reserve next to a dog park in Blackstone Heights, near Launceston just a few days ago.

The RSPCA made a public appeal on Facebook for information about her death. The post – which has since been removed – was shared over 3,000 times.

It is difficult to understand why someone would do this to a puppy.

Incomprehensibly this is just one of a spate of attacks on dogs in Tasmania.

The ABC report that three weeks ago, also in Launceston, a woman reported that an intruder had chopped the leg off her dog in her backyard.

The dog, which already had a leg amputated, had to be put down.

But there’s more – Launceston Alderman Rob Soward writes on his Facebook page of a man people claimed had been forcing his dogs to sit on a jack jumper ant nest in a riverside park.

In light of these abuses the RSPCA in Tasmania has called for tougher penalties for animal cruelty offences.

RSPCA president Paul Swiatkowski told The Mercury that they needed to make changes to deter people from deliberately inflicting serious harm on defenceless animals.

He said fines of between $5000-$10,000 should be imposed on Tasmanians who committed aggravated acts of cruelty, as well as jail terms.

In many cases offenders before the courts were let off with a slap on the wrist, a fine of a few hundred dollars or, in some cases, a wholly suspended jail sentence.

The maximum penalty for aggravated cruelty carries a $26,000 fine and an 18-month jail term.

But the RSPCA says the penalty has never been handed out.

It’s not just isolated to Tasmania though.

In October 2011 a group of men captured a young kangaroo and tormented it for several hours.

They drove the kangaroo around in a car boot, then released it to watch it almost be hit by cars.

The men then took the animal to a park where it was struck with sticks and by hand and kicked in the head with steel-capped boots.

They filmed it on a mobile phone.

Outrageously the three men initially avoided conviction and were given good behaviour bonds and fines of $850 to $2500. The Office of Public Prosecutions appealed, and the men were eventually convicted and their fines increased. Two received community corrections orders and the other a suspended sentence.

No jail time was served.

Throughout Australia the penalties for animal cruelty offences vary in each jurisdiction.

The Age reported in August that the Victorian RSPCA believes people found guilty of abusing animals in their state are not facing penalties tough enough to reflect the depravity of their crimes or to deter repeat offenders.

The maximum penalty in Victoria is 2 years imprisonment.

In NSW the maximum jail term is 5 years for serious animal cruelty under the Crimes Act or 2 years under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979.

Queensland has some of the toughest laws with Parliament recently passing legislation to increase penalties for animal cruelty.

The maximum fine doubled to $220,000 and top jail terms increased from two years to three.

(The RSPCA’s table of penalties can be accessed here, though it doesn’t reflect recent changes in QLD.)

In Tasmania an online petition at change.org has been started by Launceston Alderman Rob Soward.

“There’s just some horrific stuff going on and again we want the State Government to really put some meat into the penalties,” he said.

He feels it is critical we tackle this type of violence.

“There are volumes of psychological research which shows us that murderers and vicious criminals often start by targeting animals.”

Tasmania’s Attorney-General Brian Wightman told the ABC he was ‘disgusted’ by the incidents and new legislation is already being drafted.

“One of those will increase the penalty from 18 months to five years imprisonment,” he said.

In Tasmania the change.org petition has already collected over 2500 signatures – a sign the community too is disgusted.

You can sign the petition to increase the penalties here.