You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat others, and you can tell a hell of a lot about a person by how they treat animals.

These Cape kids have plenty of explaining to do then, after a video emerged showing them torturing and stoning a dog to death.

That video is down the bottom of the page for those interested, but for now we’ll stick with IOL and their written account of what happened.

We’ll just pull out some of the more chilling passages:

Tara McGovern, the spokeswoman for the SPCA, said the incident, which they were made aware of on Friday, happened at a vlei in Manenberg off Vygieskraal Road.

In the video eight children, aged between 7 and 17, are seen dragging a dog by a rope around his neck to a secluded area.

They are accompanied by a pitbull which they try to set on the stray dog while at the same time repeatedly kicking it.

The pitbull attacks a few times but when she doesn’t kill the stray, they hang it from a tree before taking it down and hurling rocks and concrete at the terrified cross-breed…

At one stage the boy making the video says, “This is why you must look after your dogs, people.”

There really is no excuse for behaviour such as this, but such violence often points to far-reaching repercussions.

Take this for example, from the Huffington Post:

Mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer cut off the heads of cats and dogs impaling them on sticks; Albert DeSalvo, the “Boston Strangler”, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the box, and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz poisoned his mother’s parakeet. While these are anecdotal stories about well-known serial killers, there are scientific studies that draw a direct correlation between animal torture and human cruelty…

According to the Humane Society of the United States, researchers determined that between 71 percent and 83 percent of women entering domestic violence shelters reported that their partners also abused or killed the family pet. Another study found that in families under supervision for the physical abuse of their children, pet abuse was concurrent in 88 percent of the families. In seven school shootings that took place across the country between 1997 and 2001, all boys involved had previously committed acts of animal cruelty.

No one is saying these kids will become serial murderers, that would be silly, but those stats above are very alarming. More from IOL:

Within hours, SPCA inspectors had identified the children involved in the video as well as the individual recording the incident.

McGovern said a case had been opened at the Manenberg police station while social workers from the Department of Social Development had been contacted to assist with possible rehabilitation.

The dog’s body was later retrieved from the vlei.

RIP pooch, now someone talk some sense into those children.

Video warning – TimesLive have published the video, and whilst no one in our office dares watch it we’ll pop it below.

Obviously it’s going to be graphic and upsetting, but if a jarring reminder of animal cruelty spurs someone into talking to their kids about it then maybe this one is for you.

[sources:iol&huffpost&timeslive]