It is happening too often and I’m afraid our criminal justice system is far too far behind the trend – and is doing too little to counter this sort of brutality.

Here – we have two more cases of domestic abuse tied to animal cruelty. If our society doesn’t get a handle on this, so many more kids and so many more animals and so many more families will suffer.

A Washington state family is finally safe after the husband was arrested for abusing his 4-year-old son and beating the family dog. He allegedly engaged in domestic abuse until a neighbor called the police because his dog had been beaten by this same individual.

The wife reports she was also a victim and I gather from the KXLY.com story that she feared leaving her husband until he was arrested.

And – a Philadelphia, Pa. man has been sentenced to two to seven years in prison for setting the family puppy on fire in front of his children.

A Boston Herald story reports ” he was under stress and “took it out on the dog.” ” A lot of people are under stress, but they don’t turn to abusing kids and puppies to relieve that stress.

We need more programs in schools, churches and clubs where compassion is offered as a lesson plan. We need to raise a next generation of compassionate people and pass it forward.

Something has to happen. We have too many people who are detached from reality and from feeling for the suffering of others. It might be the media age we live in or something else, but this trend needs to be reversed.