I agree with you that the dogs should have been better restrained. However, I still disagree on a few key points:
1. Prey Drive - It is quite natural for a dog to want to go after a cat. It's prey drive. Some smaller dogs may not naturally go for a cat, but to a GSD a cat is just the right size prey item. Dogs do not necessarily eat cats, but they do go after them as prey. The average well-fed, human loved dog doesn't not necessarily know what to do with its prey once it kills it. I feel the need to bring it up because it's often brought up in dog attacks on cats. "The dog didn't even eat it. This wasn't prey drive. It was malice." My dogs wouldn't behave this way either. As a matter of fact when Miss M and Miss O showed up in September of last year, it was the cats, who were still kittens and sickly, scrawny ones at that, that would go after the dogs. However, I have no illusions about why my dogs would not behave this way. I have taught them not to go after cats. I've conditioned them to accept cats and reinforced with a strong 'leave it'. Even so, I see the gleam in their eyes occasionally and the perked up ears and with stiff posture and craned necks when they see an unknown cat. They may not charge, but they definitely notice. I remind them to leave it and they snap out of it and look back to me for further instruction. It doesn't happen often, but it happens.
Two examples of their conditioning would be:
1. F's first encounter with an unknown cat. I stopped to talk to my neighbor and his cat wondered up. I felt immediate tension from F. I looked down at her and gave a firm 'leave it' command. She immediately sat and turned away from the cat. She continued to ignore the cat even when the cat decided to prod her by walking right up to her and poking at her and then proceeding to stalk her. Should I have been held responsible if my dog had gone at the cat that literally walked right up to her? Again, the reason this cat didn't end up with a good bite is not because F did not want to go for her, but because I have conditioned her to look to me for instructions. I said 'leave it' and she left it.
2. When the girls came home, F and S were brought out to start intros. They gave a casual sniff to the air, acknowledging that there was something there, and then walked about ten feet away and dropped into a down position. Why? They've been conditioned to do so.
The dogs in this scenario had owners that either did not know or did not care to teach their dogs to curb their prey drive, or have a prey drive so high - because that does need to be taken into account as well, different dogs have different levels of prey drive - that no amount of conditioning would have saved any cat with which they came into contact. The point that I am trying to make with this is that there was not a moment in which the dogs said, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to kill the neighbor's cat." They simply saw a prey item well within their reach and reacted. The same thing would have happened to a squirrel, a rabbit, a bird, etc.
The other point where I disagree is in the need for any type of legislation. While the dogs should have been and hopefully will be - before something worse happens - properly fenced, the cat was in their yard. In this particular scenario, we are not talking about a dog at large. And regardless of what the law says about cats, I'm not calling it trespassing. The law in the UK regarding cats is common sense, IMO. What I am saying, is that every time we open the door to let our cats out, me included, we do so with the risk that they will not come home or that they will come home injured.
I also disagree on the effectiveness of reporting the incident. I do agree that any incident involving serious aggression should be reported, but do not feel that the reports would have saved Pandora. She was a cat. A sturdier, taller fence would not have kept her from entering the neighbor's yard nor would it have changed the dogs' reactions when they came into contact with her.
I stink at wording things, so my intention is probably not coming across clearly, and I probably look like a rambling fool, but what I'm trying to get across is that I fail to see how, as tragic as Pandora's death is, this particular incident relates to the issues these dogs have and why this particular case is a call to action.