HANDS stretched skyward, faces eager, the class of four-year-olds clamour for attention from the woman who has come to visit. Keen to learn, cheerful and innocent, the children are a pleasure to be with - and that's the way the RSPCA wants it to stay.

Unfortunately it's not always the case. Kids can be cruel, to each other and to animals.

And it goes deeper than just pulling the wings off flies and the legs off spiders.

In recent weeks The Northern Echo has highlighted a host of heinous acts committed on animals by youths.

In one, a County Durham teenager twice poured boiling water on a hedgehog causing it to scream like a cat. The poor creature suffered severe blistering and later died. The youth was sentenced to six months in custody and banned from keeping animals for life.

Another teenager laughed as he twice hung a puppy by its neck from a railway bridge and then dropped it 70ft onto mudbanks in the river below in Northumberland.

Miraculously Bracken, a four-month-old cocker spaniel cross, now renamed Bouncer, survived - despite suffering a broken jaw, shattered teeth and brain damage that left him partially paralysed.

The youth who dropped the dog joked to another teenager: "I have just given him his first wash." He wasn't so amused when the act landed him in court.

The latest act of cruelty in County Durham saw two teenagers trying to drown a puppy before burying it alive.

The youngsters confessed to plunging four-month-old Jack Russell cross-breed Pip in a bath of water last December, but denied killing the defenceless animal.

They spent up to half an hour trying to drown the puppy, believing it had an animal illness known as parvo. Then they buried it in a shallow grave in one of the boys' front garden while a third youth stabbed it to death with a pitchfork.

He was sentenced to four months' detention, the other two await their fate.

Staggering displays of animal cruelty, all committed by youngsters in a region considered the worst in the country.

Some children have an amazing capacity to be cruel and habits learned in childhood are difficult to break. Research commissioned by the RSPCA shows that a child's attitude towards animals is fixed by the age of eight.

So to ensure it's the right attitude, school liaison officers are working hard to imbue the region's children with respect for animals.

When it's the turn of the children from Abbey Road Infants School in Darlington, RSPCA school liaison officer (SLO) Becky Ward tells them: "If you learn to look after animals properly then they will not be hurt or sad. If you get fed up with them you have still got to look after them."

Reaching for a secret sack, Becky begins to produce a series of visual aids, starting with Bonzo, a toy dog.

"Look at the things he needs to keep him happy and healthy," she says producing from the sack, dog food, biscuits, water bowl, basket, brush, lead and bone.

"So when you go home tonight I want you to make sure your pet has enough water," she says.

"But I've got a fish," says one boy.

"Well you must make sure he has water all of the time," she tells him.

The half-hour session officially over, Mrs Ward, of Darlington, is swamped by youngsters asking questions and telling her about their pets, when they should be finding their coats to go home.

The lesson may have been short, simple and innocuous, but it's obviously been effective.

"It's just a start," she says. "It just gets their minds thinking about the right way to go about things. At this age it is about learning that animals are alive. We are raising awareness of the world around them and the message is repeated each year. They are learning what is right and wrong and it is so important to get in at this stage. We help sort the real from the fantasy at a delicate time."

Youngsters aged three to 15 are targeted by the RSPCA, from nursery schools to comprehensives.

With the older children, discussions involve definitions of cruelty as well as practical advice on pet care, neutering and microchipping.

They are also given an awareness about wildlife - for instance to leave a fledgling bird alone, to crush their waste tin cans so small animals don't become trapped and to snip the plastic tin holders which can choke ducks. And often the messages are carried home to their parents.

"One girl told me that someone had tied a dog to a tree in Ormesby and left it there for two weeks," says Mrs Ward.

"She was really bothered by this. A boy told me someone had given him a barn owl, a wild bird! I was also told about a 17ft python being kept in a flat in Middlesbrough with children around. Kids tell you straight. There is no politics."

The school sessions are backed by a detailed information pack covering all kinds of animal welfare issues. This also fits in with the school curriculum as part for the new citizenship programme brought in by the Government.

Schools are provided with newsletters, leaflets and posters, invaluable resources for teachers.

Seven SLOs cover the whole northern region, hundreds of schools, thousands of children. Mrs Ward's patch covers an area bounded by Barnard Castle, Hartlepool and Whitby. Officers try to get around as many schools as possible and also target areas where there have been reports of cruelty.

Head of education and training at the RSPCA, Dave Allen, says the research fellowship spent two years looking at children's attitudes to animals.

Also examining how television helped form those attitudes, researcher Elizabeth Paul drew up a phylogenetic hierarchy with mammals at the top and insects at the bottom.

She then considered how children drew the line, the point at which they considered it wrong to be nasty to the creature.

Generally, youngsters admonished cruelty to animals but not to fish or invertebrates.

She says: "So our work is about raising awareness and asking young people where they draw the line. We say the benefit of the doubt should lie with all creatures.

"I put it down to understanding. I think many young people have a problem identifying a sentient being, differentiating between toys which can't suffer and animals which can."

The SLOs use mini-beasts - such as woodlice and snails - to introduce the idea that even they are living things.

Mrs Paul says: "They should be treating them with respect because they are alive. They are important in the food chain and are the dustbin men of nature. Young people's views are formed at an early age and the work has proved very effective."

l How to keep your pet healthy and happy: turn to page 12 for our new PetWatch column.

l More information about the AnimalWatch campaign, pet care and animal stories can also be found at Pet's Corner on our website www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk