Yet again the guilty go free. The pictures in the newspapers over the last two days are pitiable. A young boy with 180 stitches on his body and the confused instrument of his misery with a choke chain firmly around its neck surrounded by close to a dozen men in uniform.

And yet again the authorities seem to be concerned with only the instrument and not the party wielding the instrument. The concentration is again on the dog and not the owner. This is equivalent to punishing the weapon in an assault incident and not the party wielding the weapon.

The standard response is the knee-jerk reaction of starting a campaign to round up stray dogs, forgetting that as in so many previous cases, these poor dogs that attack are kept by owners who have been careless with their upkeep.

'Vicious dogs are not to be blamed,' says Dr Azizuddin Kamaruddin of Universiti Malaya. The gist of Azizuddin's comments seem to indicate that if dogs get out of control, it is usually because the owners have not treated them properly and responsibly.

The canines surely should not be blamed and punished for the cruel conditions they are kept in and the lack of care.

The authorities should go after the responsible party and not after the instruments (the poor dogs). The SPCA late last year had a signature campaign to urge the government to increase the penalties for the improper care of animals.

The aim should be that those responsible for mistreating animals (which causes them to become vicious) should be penalised by more than just with the parting of a few hundred ringgit.

When are those in authority going to take to task those truly responsible for the maltreatment of animals under their care instead of taking the easy way out by punishing the poor mistreated animals instead?