Ariel Wilkinson
Jeanna Fox
English 79
March 6, 2014
They Hurt Too Two recent reports of severe animal cruelty in Chicago illustrate the need to more comprehensively prosecute abusers ("Family abandons dog, strangers abuse it," and "Cops: Man throws boiling water on urinating dog,"). To go so far as to abandon, beat or burn a defenseless dog indicates a level of behavior that needs to be assessed as well as punished. Animals are part of the family and should be treated as a small child. Would you beat or burn a child because they did something wrong? I surly hope not. Animal Cruelty such as animal experimenting, animal abuse, and mistreatment of animals should be dealt with with harsher punishments. Animal experimenting is wrong and a cruelty to animals. Over fifteen billion animals die from animal cruelty; of those fifteen billion, five million die from experimenting alone. This type of cruelty consists of experimental substances being forced into an animal in multiple painful ways. They suffer in pain, ache with loneliness, and long to be free. All they can do is sit in their cages and wait, in fear, for the next experiment to begin. The stress actually causes the animals to begin strange behavior like pulling out their hair and biting at their own skin. They jump in fear whenever someone walks past, scared that they will be chosen. After going through this terrible life, almost all of these animals are killed. There are many cheap, faster, and non-animal tests that can replace the ones that are out there now, so why not use these and eliminate animals experimenting all together? Animal abuse comes in a broad range of behaviors harmful to animals. This includes any forms of physical damage an animal might endure by their owner, for example hitting an animal that leaves permanent damage. Identifying an abused animal can be fairly simple; just look for cuts or blood stains, limping, which could mean a broken bone, and if the animal is fearful towards other humans. Harsher punishments towards these abusive owners need to be put into action. As of now there are no federal cruelty laws; the only law in action is the Animal Welfare Act which only deals with the handling and healing of abused animals. Mistreating an animal is one of the most painful ways an animal can die. Most mistreated animals cannot be identified very easily as physically