Kayla Weis
A Look into Animal Cruelty
Adv. Comp
12/9/12

A Look into Animal Cruelty Animal neglect takes many forms; puppy mills, animal hoarding, or dog fights are only a few examples. Many other incidences with animal abuse happen to the unseen eye of the public all around the nation. A recent news feed covering animal cruelty has given rise to the awareness; a father and son crime, ages sixty and twenty-nine, were apprehended after a neighbor witnessed them outside beating their domestic house cat to death with a mere stick. Authorities were called to the scene and found the deceased beaten cat in their trash can. The court found them guilty and they were to serve two years in jail(ASPCA, 2012). The animal cruelty epidemic does not appear in many people's interests until stories such as these are heard. Animals are unfairly represented when perpetrators are caught harming or killing them. They receive, maybe, a maximum sentence of two years or less. Harmful treatment to animals not only causes them pain, but leads them to lose trust in the human population. Which, in turn, makes animals feel vulnerable and ends in a possible dangerous situation. Animals may not be able to speak what they are feeling, but pain is felt the same to everyone and everything. Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1966, the Animal Welfare Act "AWA" required all animal dealers to be registered and licensed as well as liable to monitoring by Federal regulators and suspension of their license if they violate any provisions of the Animal Welfare Act and imprisonment of up to a year accompanied by a fine of $1,000(U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1986). This act still has the same effect on animal abusers today. Serving minimal years or months is not an acceptable punishment upon these individuals. They deserve much more against their records and lives. Laws should benefit animals as it does humans, to reduce the death and neglect animals receive around the nation. In 2010, on September first, CNN aired a horrific scene of animal cruelty. A video was put out on the internet filming a woman throwing helpless puppies over a bridge into the water below. The video shows the puppies are alive at the time, as they are crying from the situation they are sadly subject to(Walker, 2010). Examples of crimes resembling the severity of these need to be addressed with harsher punishment. If a person is able to mindlessly hurt or kill an animal, there is no doubt that they would do the same to a human being. Studies have shown cases proving when young children witness animal abuse in their households they are more likely to commit heinous crimes in adulthood. If animal abuse is not enough, people should look what it can lead to. Even if the case doesn't involve animals the overall effect can involve harm onto human population as well. Animal neglect and abandonment reaches to the top of the list of animal cruelty in the US. The mixture of the two leads to a dark and unhappy road for the animal. Sadly, shooting of an animal comes close to second on these helpless victims. Imagine these numbers representing children, because an animal should be seen as equal as a child or family member. The nation can come together to ensure these animals are protected on a safer level. People don't know that they're voice of concern can make a world of different to an abused animal. Discussing the matter of stricter punishment to abusers in hopes to decrease the amount of battered or murdered animals. Over the last five years the animal neglect has been on an all time rise. The amount of death has risen from numbers in the two hundreds to numbers in the seven thousands. To stop these numbers from going any higher action needs to be taken to the law makers to help assist the victims of neglect. Animal hoarding has come to many people's attention in the past couple years. In the US animal hoarding runs in second of the highest recorded animal abuse.