A couple of weeks ago my family discovered an unexpected pack of five puppies had been abandoned in a field across our road by some cruel unknown person. These puppies were still very young and very shy and very vulnerable.

Already owning three cats, we could not take them in but we decided to continue to feed them until they trusted us enough to take them to a dog shelter.

This evening their numbers have dwindled to four due to the irresponsible driving of another man who decided to drive way over the speed limit in our country road and run over the friendliest of the five pups who was now letting us pet and play with him. Obviously, the man was too cowardly to stop his car and sped away before we could even catch his number plate.

This is not the first time someone has dumped animals on our doorstep nor the first time a reckless driver has run over an animal of ours or some stray cat or hedgehog and it causes us great pain to see animals treated so cruelly in this way.

What can be done by the government and by ordinary people to end these stupid and senseless acts? Perhaps an education campaign would be a good start since appeals by organisations such as the SPCA, AAA and individuals like Freddie Fenech are not enough and are not getting through to the common citizen.