| "A dog is the only animal on Earth that will love you more than he loves himself." -Josh Billing
There are about 60 million households in the United States who have one or more pets. These pets are considered to be companions and family members. Our pets are loyal to us and depend upon us as we depend on them. Animal cruelty is the complete opposite of what any pet should experience.
Animal cruelty involves a range of behaviors harmful to animals, from neglect to malicious killing. There are two main types of cruelty towards animals: passive and active.
Passive cruelty is typified by cases of neglect, where the crime is a lack of action rather than the action itself - however, do not let the terminology fool you. Examples of this type of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations, inadequate shelter in bad weather conditions, and failure to seek veterinary care when an animal needs medical attention.
Active cruelty implies malicious intent, where a person has deliberately and intentionally caused harm to an animal, and is sometimes referred to as NAI (Non-Accidental Injury). Many times a person who is abusive may kill, or threaten to kill, the pets to intimidate family members into sexual abuse, to remain silent about previous abuse, or to psychologically torture the victims. They also may just abuse animals because they feel powerless against humans and take all their anger and revenge out on their own pets. Chances are if an animal is being abused and there is a child in that household then the child is also being abused. Chances are that a child abusing an animal can grow up to be someone who commits other violent crimes. In 1997, Boston's Northeastern University did a study that found 70% of all animal abusers have committed at least 1 other crime and that 40% had committed violent crimes against humans.
Animal abuse is not a minor crime. Most cases of animal abuse that have been proven guilty are sent to jail for very long periods of time.
Teens can even help stop this horrible crime. Teens can do things such as being a responsible pet owner, joining the HumaneTeen Network, or just simply getting the word out.
Animal abuse is a crime. Stop it before it begins.
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6 comments:
i hate animal cruelty and i think people who abuse animals should be sent to jail. Animals are a living beings also. they have never done anything to hurt people(unless it is a mean animal) People who abuse dogs to get torture the mentality of animals is horrible and personally i think they should be sent to jail for a long time. There is no excuse for anything like abusing mans best friend.
There is absolutely no excuse for animal cruelty as I see it. The person chooses to have that pet.
How can you not love a dog! I wish I was as good a person as my pets think I am.
I agree animal abuse is a horrible crime. Anyone who would do something like that to a living creature deserves to go to jail. I hardly agree that animal abuse is wrong, but what also makes me mad is when people talk about animal abuse when children are being abused everyday as well. I know we have taken action in both of these situation, but what is the topic we here the most about—animal abuse. If people are so passionate about taking action against animal abuse, why aren’t people as, or even more passionate about protecting our children from abuse?
ANIMAL ABUSE IS MOST DEFINATELY WRONG! Why do people feel the need to do it? To feel powerful?! Whoa big deal you are beating a practically defenseless and loving animal!
P.S. muddy cleats- when you said "I hardly agree that animal abuse is wrong..." it sounded like you don't feel animal abuse is bad. Anyway, not important and know it was meant to be read like that, just wanted to point it out.
As a positivist, I think that MOST animal cruelty is a consequence of neglect, not anger. The animals starve or do not get adequate medical attention. I do not believe that animals are beaten and abused because their owners "feel like it." Along with that, I think that a lot of the cruelty is linked poverty. Owners use their animals as a source of income. (Underground dog fighting, for instance) I think vivisection needs to be mentioned as well. Animal testing is wrong and should be abolished for good. I read about a chimpanzee who was injected with a strain of AIDS once a month until he was so ill, he collapsed and had to be put down. What did humanity gain from this vicious experiment? Nothing. The murder of an innocent life. I think society has this idea in mind that animals are lesser beings than we, homo sapiens. They can feel and they can hurt just as much as we can. We need to restore our love for them as creatures of this earth.
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