A Dog Blog Post

Animal Cruelty and the Human Condition

I just read this article on the Huffington Post. To sum it up: a woman drowned, sliced open, and then mutilated a relative's cat so she could don herself in cat blood for a Lady Gaga concert. She is being charged with animal cruelty, and is was revealed that she has suffered from depression in the past, but never from violent outbursts.

While she committed a horrible act, I do feel for the woman. Mental illness is nothing to take lightly. However, something like this makes me wonder exactly what we're doing. Animal abuse and neglect occur all the time, and many people charged with these heinous crimes are let off without proper discipline. For example, Michael Vick was the financial backer of a dog fighting ring and also a participant. Inside that ring, abuse, neglect, torture and execution occurred. And yet, despite participating in and allowing these horrendous acts to occur, he only received 23 months of jail time.

How on earth did such a crime not warrant more than 23 months?

I met some of the Michael Vick dogs last July when visiting Best Friends Animal Society. While some were adoptable and have joined wonderful homes after months and months or rehabilitation and treatment, other dogs were sentenced to a lifetime at Best Friends. Now, don't get me wrong... Best Friends Animal Society is an absolutely breathtaking sanctuary and their dogs are well cared for. They have indoor kennels, outdoor kennels, toys, food, water, medical treatment, and a lot of room to run. The caretakers there are dedicated and love the animals they care for.

However, these dogs have been punished for being victims. I understand that they may not be rehabilitateable. Believe me, I have seen my fair share of abuse cases, and I have cared for several dogs who were used as bait in dog fighting. It's ugly, and not all dogs can come back from such a brutal past. But it's still a very depressing thought-- that these dogs will never see the inside of a home because some group of men violated them and allowed them to be torn apart, beaten, and starved. 

I think what truly affects me is that we domesticated them. No animal should be treated so horribly, but regarding dogs and cats specifically, we turned them into pets. We allowed them to overpopulate, and we allow abuse to continue by not rectifying the darker side of our society. We've demonized breeds of dogs that we bred aggression into and they suffer for it every single day.

I think, as people, we need to look around because we do the same to our fellow man. There is a recent 'controversy' brewing because of a picture of the president of J. Crew painting her young son's toe nails pink. It's being called part of the "transgendered liberal agenda." It's being blown out of proportion, and people are declaring this boy will need psychotherapy later in life to combat the effects of his mother's actions. And yet, there are children starving, being abused and neglected, and wandering the streets in search of hope because we live in a system that cannot and will not support them due to budget cuts and wars overseas that we have no business involved in.

We are forgetting what's important in life, and it's a very sad realization.

And yet, there are always bright spots. People of Japan, who are facing natural disaster after disaster as well as a possible nuclear disaster, are risking their own health for stray and abandoned dogs. This Huffington Post article tells a story of a group of animal enthusiasts who braved an evacuated area to save a group of wandering Collies.

I can only hope that more people begin to think as selflessly as these people.