Holyrood wants to introduce a new law on dog theft – it is not a good sign, says Mark Smith

Full disclosure: I am a dog owner/lover/parent whatever you want to call it and Mona, my labrador/spaniel cross, is lying here at my feet right now fast asleep, wonderfully unaware of newspaper columns and comments and opinions and Yes/No, Leave/Remain, Tory/Labour and all the rest of it. She’s also unaware, thank God, that there’s a parliament in Edinburgh making laws about her. You’ve got to think sometimes: oh, to be a dog.

The proposed new law about Mona and her species is the Dog Theft (Scotland) Bill which passed its first stage at Holyrood on Thursday. It would make stealing a dog a separate offence for the first time and has been proposed by Maurice Golden of the Scottish Conservatives. Mr Golden said the law was necessary because dogs are our best friends and deserve better protection than they get under the current system. “The law does not adequately recognise the status of dogs in family households nor the place they occupy in our hearts,” he said.

This is perfectly nice stuff from Mr Golden, who may well have come up with the idea while his own dog was lying at his feet fast asleep, and I’m not going to belittle or minimise the bond some of us have with dogs. But the timing is interesting. Here’s Mr Golden talking about dogs as friends and why action must be taken to protect them and there’s another Tory MSP, Douglas Ross, talking about seagulls........

© Herald Scotland