Gruesome Corgi killing highlights why Australia is one of the ‘least animal-friendly countries in the world’
The life of a tiny corgi named Porky was senselessly cut short after she was stolen from a married couple in Queensland.
WARNING: Graphic content
Just three weeks after welcoming a tiny corgi puppy into their lives, a married couple’s biggest fear became reality.
Their 10-week-old puppy - who was gifted to them as a wedding present a few years ago - went missing, his owner Codie Miller told news.com.au podcast The Dog Detective.
“He was my husband’s wedding present, he’s just a cute little boy,” she said.
“We’d only just got him, and we’d had him for three weeks when he went missing.”
At the time, Ms Miller raced home from work to look for the little pooch, named Porky, who vanished after her husband left him alone for a brief moment outside.
After completing a thorough search of the home and surrounding areas, a desperate Ms Miller took to Facebook to ask for help.
Her plea attracted the attention of Kirilly Cull, who works as a pet theft investigator, and runs the Facebook page Missing and Stolen Pet Investigators Australia.
“I thought oh my god, this is a baby. It’s tiny and being a corgi, even tinier. So I contacted her … and I just went straight out there,” Ms Cull told the podcast.
Ms Cull didn’t live too far away from the couple, who are based in Queensland.
Ms Miller said after Ms Cull completed her own investigation, they all “became more suspicious” about what happened to Porky.
They searched the property for hours, using high powered torches to search trough the bushland, but had no luck.
Ms Cull said she continued the search over a few days until heading out to the property one final time.
“At the time, I had an assistant with me and we went out, we searched, and we searched, and we searched,” she recalled.
“And as we’re coming back towards the house that’s on the property, there is this, it’s kind of like a manhole … and this is out in the middle of nowhere. So this is on acreage and this manhole is grey water,” she said.
“I pulled the plastic lid back and there was little Porky, floating. He had been drowned. I just went, ‘oh my god’.
“It was quite deep the water, there was no way that he could have got in there himself. He had blood on the side of his mouth. And there was kind of a wound like a trauma wound to his head. I just simply pulled him out.”
Ms Cull said Porky wasn’t bloated and there were no insects on him, suggesting he had only been killed recently.
“He was fresh. And he’d been missing for days. So either someone has done it vindictively and killed him or drowned him.
“He was like the size of a bunny rabbit. This poor defenceless little puppy had been used for some reason to get back at somebody.”
She said the grim finding was something that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“I said Cody, darling, we found him. It’s not good. And she just lost it, absolutely lost it,” she said.
A nearby vet conducted a necropsy on Porky, but its results were inconclusive, Ms Cull said.
“They couldn’t tell us what happened. But from the looks of it. If their eyes are out there, their mouths open. It’s some kind of trauma in the way of taking the breath away, and he had all the signs of that.”
Why Australia is not animal friendly
In Australia, animals are treated as property as opposed to sentient beings with thoughts and feelings of their own.
Emma Hurst, the MLC at the Animal Justice Party said that highlighted why Australia was one of the “least animal friendly countries in the world”.
“When we consider animals to be legal property, we’re failing to recognise through our legislation, the value of animals as individuals, and also the bond that people have with animals,” she said.
“And when we’re only giving the same amount of consideration to a cat or a dog as a chair or a table. It just goes to show how out of step our legislation is compared to the community expectations in this area,”
She has called on a change in legislation to recognise people as legal guardians to animals.
“We need to ensure that companion animals are still given the right care and the right welfare, and people are still responsible to ensure that welfare,” she said.
The laws surrounding animal theft also meant thieves received an “absolutely pathetic maximum fine of only $550”.
Ms Hurst said the punishment “really undermines the value and the place of companion animals”.
“It also implies that stealing a dog is a low level crime, which it absolutely isn’t, especially when you consider the bond that many people have with their companion animals,” she said.
The Dog Detective is news.com.au’s new six part podcast serial lifting the lid on the complicated world of dog detectives, and the dark side of the pet community in Australia
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