“To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.”

Author Charles Siebert explores how psychologists, lawmakers, and law-enforcement officers are increasingly making a connection between animal abuse and other forms of violence. Many people will tell you that this is not news — that we have known for decades that the boy who mutilates frogs is far more likely to end up behind bars than the one who picks daisies for his mother. Even if this is not breaking news to experts, Siebert, who brings quiet authority and an even-tempered sensibility to the page, nonetheless opened my eyes. The piece does not preach, but it is rousing.

My first thought was that I wanted to scream at someone — particularly the perpetrators written about, specifically and generally, in the article. How could they inflict such suffering? How could they look into a loving and loyal dog’s eyes with intent to snuff out the light behind them? How could others allow such behavior? Days later, I remain exasperated, but my lens is wider. What have we done? What society have we created where such people, such circumstances, and such behavior exist? How are we educating, how are we raising, how are we shaping consciousness, that our fellow human beings — this is not one or two bad apples — engage in such heinous acts?

The easy answers, the ones we focus on whenever we encounter indefensible behavior — the length of prison terms, namely — do not satisfy me here. No doubt, I am pleased that society is to an increasing degree intolerant of animal cruelty. I am heartened that California recently added Humane Society and animal-control officers to the list of professionals bound by law to report suspected abuse (and that the state is considering a bill that would list animal abusers on the same type of online registry as sex offenders and arsonists). I want my government to pursue dog-fighters and puppy-mill owners. Yes, punishment is due. And I would applaud my representative if he proposed laws that made stricter enforcement more likely in our state.

But I refuse to believe that the boys who set their dog ablaze came out of the womb destined for such cruelty (or that their parents did, either, if, in fact, the behavior was learned at home). I cannot accept that a boy who used to run in fields and swing in the park wittingly becomes a man so insecure with himself that in order to assert authority at home he must kick — or mutilate — the dog.

We are better than that. Aren’t we?