Animal Abuse And Neglect

Animal abuse is just the beginning of a trail of violence waiting to become undone. Most children who mistreat pets or animals usually are suffering forms of violence or dysfunction in the home. When an abuser kills the family pet he is

Children who live in homes where animal abuse is present are often abused themselves and unfortunately, sometimes carry on with the cycle of abuse later on in life. “More than 80 percent of family members being treated for child abuse also had abused animals. In one-third of the cases, a child victim continued the cycle of violence by abusing a pet (“The animal abuse home violence connection”, 2013).”

Every pet owner has that horrible moment when they accidently step on their dog’s paw or cat’s tail. The dog will whimper and cower like it is asking what it did wrong; while the cat will hiss and hide for awhile. Most people will momentarily hate themselves for hurting their beloved pet, but there are people in the world that harm their pet intentionally. These people will torture animals for fun and have no regret or buy a pet and neglect the animal. If caught these animal abusers are given a slap on the wrist and on severe cases given a short jail sentence. Animal abuse should be considered a felony rather than a misdemeanor.

First, animal abuse can lead to health problems for the animals. To begin with, malnourishment is a serious issue among abused animals. According to, a statistic brain article, Seth stated, “32% of animal cruelty cases involve neglect/malnourishment.” College students tend not to care for their pets for

Animal cruelty can be either deliberate abuse or simply the failure to take care of an animal. Either way, or whether the animal is a pet, a farm animal or wildlife, the victim can suffer terribly. Animal cruelty is an ethical and moral dilemma as there is no clear right or wrong answers that can solve all of the issues. There are numerous opinions on how this issue can be solved, these include;

Animal abuse is when someone mistreats or inflicts pain on an animal. Even not feeding them is a form of animal abuse. Animal abuse is a major problem in America. When looking at why animals are treated the way they are today, it is important to think about the history of animal abuse, the rate at which animal abuse is reported, why people mistreat animals, and current animal rights advocacy groups.

There are some people who intentionally harm animals because of their low self-esteem. “These are people who intentionally hurt animals because they enjoy hurting things, or because it makes them feel powerful. Many of these people would hurt other people if they could get away with it. They just choose to hurt animals because animals are more helpless than people,” found by the American Prosecution Research Institute, in the article of "Real Issues".

The first is acts of omission, meaning abuse from lack of action to take care of their animals. Passive cruelty can be referred to cases of neglect of animals. Some examples of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations, allowing a collar to grow into an animal’s skin, no shelter in extreme weather, unsanitary conditions with no food or water and failure to seek veterinary care when necessary. Active cruelty also referred to as non-accidental injury, is implied when a person deliberately or intentionally causes harm to an animal. This action can also be linked between abuse within the home of women and children. This reveals the family member or person has a serious psychological issue and may commit more actions of violence.

People shouldn’t have any rights to abuse or neglect animals and get away with it easily. Animal abuse is a big conflict because some people get away with these acts in which they don’t get punished or little punishment while the animals don’t get to live happy lives and suffer. Hiding in pain that these occurrences that happened to them with procide over and over again. However, in the article “Frequently Asked Questions About Animal Cruelty” by The Humane Society of the United States, it states that “ Animal cruelty, like any other form of violence, is often committed by a person who feels powerless, unnoticed, or under the control of others. The motive may be to shock, threaten, intimidate, or offend others or to demonstrate rejection of society's rules. Some who are cruel to animals copy acts they have seen or that have been done to them. Others see harming an animal as a safe way to get revenge against—or threaten—someone who cares about that animal.” (The Humane Society of the United States, 2017) This states that there are reasons why people do what they do to the animals but it still doesn’t give them the right to harm or mistreat them. The article also states that

Abusing animals is not acceptable and it is most definitely inexcusable. Laws and consequences that are more harsh should be put into place. Why should animals be treated differently? A human that abuses an animal badly on purpose, should be considered dangerous. If a person cannot act humanely towards an animal, then in reality, what's to stop them from acting like that towards a human? A person who abuses an animal is dangerous to humans and animals alike. Another valid reason to make more harsher consequences is simple. Say a person does serve his/her time in jail or pays the fine. Sure they will not be allowed to own an animal, but what’s to stop them from abusing an animal again? There should be a rule in place where your on protocol and have people supervising the person to make sure that they will not abuse an animal again. Or say if they did abuse an animal again, the fine and jail time should triple or double, the person should be put into a course about animal abuse and how to treat an animal, and how bad of pain the animal goes through during abuse. Abusing an animal is like abusing a child, the child is defenseless and can not do anything to stop it. That is the same thing with an animal. What can an animal do to defend itself? Run and hide? Maybe try to bite or scratch? Other than that the animal is completely defenseless.

According to PAWS, animal cruelty is when someone injures an animal, which can be your own pet, or an animal that you come across. Animal cruelty can also be when you don’t commit to full responsibility. For example, when you don’t provide food or water for your pet, this is animal cruelty. In Statistic Brain, neglect is one of the most common ways of animal abuse, with 32%.

Three out of five households in America own a pet. Now imagine one of those poor little puppies or kittens getting beaten, malnourished, or even getting trained to fight. Animal abuse is a serious crime. Regardless if it is a domestic animal or not, it should get treated like one. Animal abuse occurs everywhere and people do it because they are not scared of the punishment for doing it. Studies have shown that people that abuse animals are more likely to harm or kill people. Something should be done about this serious issue in society. In order to reduce the amount of animal abuse, law makers should increase punishments for abusing animals.

Many animals die each year from animal cruelty. Caring for some animals can be very expensive ,abusing animals is a felony and against the law. Animal abuse or animal cruelty is unintentional animal neglect and the intentional infliction by humans of suffering or harm upon any non-human animal, regardless of whether the act is against the law. Using animals for testing is against the law,and not right.

Unfortunately today there are many cases of animal abuse happening around the world. Animal cruelty or animal abuse can be defined as the infliction of suffering or harm upon animals for purposes other than self-defense. There are many different types of abuse such as using animals for research, using animals for entertainment purposes, abandoning animals to shelters, and animal neglect. We need to raise awareness and find a solution to these issues. Animals are suffering and we need to help them.

Abuse, starvation, neglect, and more are all signs of non-domestic animal abuse. Humans abuse animals on a daily basis. They abuse them mentally and physically. We all have and know ways to help, but some people just don't care if innocent animals are being beaten, broken down, and starved for no good reason.