Watch this video!

One morning this past week I had just woken up and had gone downstairs to eat breakfast. I hear sniffles coming from our study, and I see my mom sitting, staring at the computer screen with tears in her eyes. Like the good daughter I am, I asked what was wrong, and she showed me this video of a man shooting his cat with a BB gun.

There was nothing wrong with the cat nor did it do anything wrong. He just thought it would be fun, I guess, because you could see from the video he was not doing it from anger. I would like to know how someone could be, I hate to use this word but, psycho. What a despicable human being. If a dog or cat does something very wrong, for example cause a death, then the people who are qualified (and only those who are qualified) have the right to euthanize these animals. It is painless, and they are surrounded by people who care about them. They do not deserve to be treated the way this cat got treated and like many others get treated every single day.

“Animals cannot speak up for themselves – they depend on us to speak for them.” — Last Chance for Animals.

Animal abuse has always been a problem whether people were aware like they are now or not. In an article on faunalytics called “Battering, Bullying, and Beyond: The Role of Gender, Power, and Control in the Link between Animal Abuse and Human Violence,” the author Clif Flynn started to look at the relationship between animal abuse and family violence. He expanded his research to other forms of violence toward humans. Clif examined three different aspects: women-battering and pet abuse; animal cruelty and bullying; and childhood animal cruelty and subsequent adult violent criminality. The first category, women-battering and pet abuse, shows women-battering shows the role of gender, power and control in male violence toward women and animals. The researchers found that batterers that are active in animal abuse will have higher rates of sexual violence, marital rape and emotional problems. They also found that people that abuse pets use more controlling behaviors: male privilege, isolation, intimidation, threats and economic abuse.

The next research that was completed was in the bullying aspect of animal abuse. This study also shows the relationship between animal abuse and bullying and how gender, power and control play a big role. Researchers found that children that were involved in bullying in any aspect were more likely to be involved in abuse. This research is seen more with men. They sum it up by saying, “Children who are victimized may feel the need to exert power over other weaker individuals in an effort to protect themselves from the fear and shame resulting from their own perceived weakness.”

The last relationship was childhood animal cruelty and violent adult criminality. In one study, researchers looked at whether childhood animal abuse was related to repeated acts of child abuse violence among 261 prisoners convicted of the more serious crimes like murder. They looked at acts of kicking, hitting, drowning, shooting, choking, burning and having sexual relations with an animal. They examined these relationships with the number of times inmates had been convicted of these more violent crimes. The prisoners that have had sexual relations with animals as children were more likely to keep committing acts of interpersonal violence. These all involve control and overpowering another person or animal.

All of these have one thing in common — they all involve gender, power and control. Males that abuse animals feel accomplished by the power they have. Then those who were bullied want to transform that powerlessness they felt to powerful by bullying other and animals. So it all starts with humans and human violence. Once we fix that then we decrease the number of animal abuse cases.

Now. I know it is way easier said than done, but it needs to be done.