Convicting and Condoning

Recently, I heard a terrible story on the news about a man who had been charged for having cut the ears of his Rotweiler/German Sheppard puppy in order to make him appear "more menacing". I was as happy that he had been charged for this brutality as I was horrified that he had done it. Today, biking along Queen Street, I saw a woman in a trendy spring dress, cheerily walking her Doberman Pinscher puppy who had the white bandaged evidence that her ears had just been "cropped". This darling, innocent little being had succumbed to the cruelty of human vanity, having had her soft puppy ears cut to a shape deemed the proper style for her breed. How, really, is this any less horrific than what that man had been charged for? I didn't know whether the urge was stronger to scream with anger for the injustice or cry for the puppy, begging its forgiveness for the senseless violence of my species that rears its ugly head in so many domains.