It’s On The Books!
Lost in the louder news last month was an important addition to English legislation – the Pet Abduction Bill 2024, receiving Royal Assent on May 24th and becoming law three months later. This means that, from 24 August 2024, theft of a pet will become a separate criminal offence.
Before this bill was passed, stealing a pet cat or dog was treated as an offence under the Theft Act 1968 and was considered as being similar to stealing property. Any pet owner knows that having a pet stolen is far worse. Your car doesn’t get anxious if somebody steals it and sells it on. Your jewellery is valuable to you, but it doesn’t come up to sit beside you when you feel sad or ill. Pets are something more than inanimate possessions. They are thinking, feeling creatures, and a stolen pet will miss you as much as you miss them.
Scope of the Act
I am not going to make any comment on politics. We’re here to give your cats a holiday while you’re away, not to get drawn into political debate. I will only say that the Pet Abduction Bill was put forward as a Private Members’ Bill by Anna Firth (then MP for Southend on Sea) and Lord Black of Brentwood, and that it was strongly supported by MPs of all parties. The need for this new emphasis on stolen pets as sentient beings was prompted by the rise in pet theft during the pandemic, when 2,000 dogs and 400 cats were reported stolen in one year alone – though it has been a problem long before that time.
This Act will apply only in England and Northern Ireland and only to cats and dogs. However, there is provision in the wording of the Act for it to be extended to cover other pets in future and it provides a pattern for any Scottish or Welsh MP that feels inclined to extend the cover to their own jurisdiction.
‘Kahu’
On the subject of pets as animals willing and able to make their own choices, I’ve had an interesting word pointed out to me this week. It seems that in Hawaii the word ‘kahu’ carries the meaning of honoured trustee, guardian or carer of a range of things, including pets – someone entrusted with the safety of something precious. Where the official English phrase would be ‘pet owner’, the Hawaiians view that not as ownership but that the person has accepted a duty to care for the pet.
That’s going to sound familiar to anyone who has a cat in the family; they don’t believe that we own them. Hot weather is finally here again, and already the cats of Braintree and Halstead and Hedingham are starting to take themselves off on short adventures in the cooler nights, going missing for three or four or seven days before returning with the haughty attitude of minor royalty expecting their attendants to hop to it with the best food. If they’re absent because they have been taken in by somebody else; the Pet Abduction Act will soon be in force, giving you the legal backing to bring your cats safely home.
Images courtesy of Bianca Van Dijk, Pixabay
