Of all the questions raised by the horrific killing of a cat in Camrose, Alta., late last month, the most important was uttered by the mother of one of the four teenage boys allegedly responsible.
In an interview with the Edmonton Journal, the woman said people are asking why she didn't stop them. "How do you do that?" she said. "That's really quite difficult."
The boys, three of whom are 15 and one whom is 13, are alleged to have broken into a house on Dec. 30 and put a cat in a microwave. They are now facing various charges, including unlawfully killing an animal.
Little is known about the motives or backgrounds of the children involved, and the allegations against them have not been proven.
But in other cases of animal cruelty, experts have seen a troubling link between young people who abuse animals and serious incidents of violence later in life.
So how should parents and society respond when kids demonstrate an act of callous disregard - or worse - toward an animal?
The website of the Humane Society of the United States has a page dedicated to "Children and Animal Cruelty: What Parents Should Know," which advises parents to report any troubling behaviour to school counsellors, pediatricians, animal welfare organizations or even police.
"It is particularly important to intervene when a child is insensitive to the obvious distress of an animal, repeats a harmful behaviour or derives pleasure from causing an animal pain," it states.
"It's a sign of a serious problem," says Shelagh MacDonald, program director at the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies. "Parents need to be very vigilant and if they see this kind of behaviour, they do need to take it seriously. It's a huge red flag."
Ms. MacDonald said parents who witness any unkind act toward an animal should immediately speak to their children about what they have done, find out what their intentions were, and whether they understand the serious nature of their action. If the child displays a lack of empathy or understanding of the issue, she advises parents to seek out a psychological intervention.
Bill Pitt, a professor of criminology at the University of Alberta, said that violence toward animals is one of a triumvirate of behaviours, along with fire starting and bedwetting, that commonly indicate serous psychiatric problems.
Cases of blatant animal cruelty are "scary," he said. "This is not pranksterism any more."
Prof. Pitt says the courts and mental health community also have an obligation to take such behaviour seriously and to acknowledge that it is often out of a family's ability to address or control.
Cheryl Currie of the University of Alberta's school of public health published research in 2006 that showed a link, in some cases, between animal abuse and domestic violence.
Ms. Currie studied 100 children who had been exposed to violence in the home, usually the physical or psychological abuse of their mothers, and 100 who had not.
Children exposed to violence were three times more likely to have abused animals than those who weren't.
The circumstances of the children accused in Alberta are not known.
"Experiencing violence gives you a feeling of powerlessness and it retards the development of empathy," Ms. Currie said. "Instead of feeling sad and upset, violence allows them to actually feel energized and empowered."
Ms. MacDonald said it is important to determine which acts are innocent and which speak to a deeper problem.
"At the risk of sounding too species-ist, I think the higher up the scale an animal is, the more serious that might be," she said. "Not that it's a good thing to have kids tearing the legs off a fly, but that's definitely different than hurting a dog or a cat."
The age of the child should also be taken into account, she said. Young children may not understand that their actions are inflicting pain, while older kids will have difficulty dismissing their actions as inadvertent.