16 March 2012
Animal Cruelty
All over the United States animals are being poorly taken care of. People take animals for many different reasons. Some take animals to make a profit like for breeding, some are looking for companionship and other take them thinking they can make a difference in the animal’s life and help the animals. People do not recognize the burden that it may cause them personally and they do not realize the proper protocol is needs to be taken. It and become overwhelming and out of control in no time at all. Today animal cruelty is a major topic in today’s world and becoming a bigger issue in many different areas of the United States. The need for animal advocates is becoming a growing need.
Animal cruelty can be defined as causing unjustified injury or death to an animal (Fighting Animal Cruelty). If one was to cause harm and not fix the problem, that person should not be allowed to have animals in their care. There are two types of animal cruelty, passive and active. Passive cruelty is based on neglect. Lack of attention is just as bad as direct harm. It can cause you to not be aware of things that are wrong with the animal such as dehydration, parasite infestation, inadequate shelter, and failure to seek veterinary care when needed. Sometimes an investigator will look at the situation, educate the owner and make return visits to see if there have been improvements. Active cruelty indicates deliberate and intentional harm to the animal. This can possibly show signs of physiological problems with the owner. Many times, if it is a household pet, it can be used as a tool for an abuser to gain more control, and show who has power (Animal Cruelty).
The most common types of violent animal cruelty are cock fighting and dog fighting. The animals would be placed in a cage and forced to fight and see which animal was to survive. This was legal in New York state up until 1866 when Henry Bergh founded ASPCA and was able to have a law passed that made any kind of animal cruelty illegal. They did the fighting between the animals for a sense of power for themselves. They believed that if their animal won the fight they were also considered a winner (Dog Fighting and Cockfighting).
The most common cases of animal cruelty is involving cats and dogs. 64.5% involve dogs, and 18% involve cats. 25% of the cases involve other animals. Pit bulls were the most common type of dog to suffer abuse in 2007. Horses are costly to care for, and more than one third of Americans own horses that have a house hold income of less than $50,000. Livestock, such as cows and pigs, has dropped over the past few years with the number of neglect cases (Animal Cruelty Facts and Statistics).
In Oregon, animal cruelty can be fined anywhere from $2,000 to $100,000 and can serve 6 months to 1 year in prison (Animal Cruelty Laws State By State). This is depending on the severity of the abuse, and if any action was taken to fix it. Sometimes people can neglect their animals and not see it as neglect, with others it can be brought to their attention and they will still choose to do nothing about it. When animal owners get to the point where they decide they don’t want to fix their problem, the law should definitely take over the situation and the owner should become legally and financially responsible.
Some people are able to get by and not have to face legal consequence, but will stay under watch by animal cruelty investigators. Currently in a town in Clackamas County there is a rescue where all too often the animals are being brought in and instead of helping the animals properly to return them to health they are brought in and turned to the back pasture. The manager of the barn has been heard saying that the strong will survive and the weak will not. The owner of the rescues has been turned in repeatedly and has been able to work their way around any type of consequences. Animals have died unnecessarily and have been neglected because they were just over looked. There have been times the owner lied to the investigators stating that the animals were just brought in, when in fact the animals were only brought in from the back pasture because the owner was aware that the investor was making a visit. One visit was reported that there was a dead animal that was hidden on the property until the investigator left because the animal had died of neglect. When animal cruelty investigators started coming around the property, the owner started making the healthy animals visible and the sick animals were hidden or put somewhere that they would be unable to get to (Hellen Castro).
There was a case in Harrodsburg Kentucky where the owner was arrested on felony animal cruelty charges involving 30 horses. He was charged with 30 counts of first-degree animal cruelty when the horses were reported having been poorly taken care of. They were said to be malnourished and neglected. One of the horses was said to have been able to see her ribs and her hip bones were sticking out several inches from her body. To make matters worse, she was unhealthy with a foal to take care of. First-degree is a class D felony, and can be punishable from 1 to 5 years in prison. He was released the day after his arrest on a $5,000 cash bond (Starving Horses Seized from Rescue).
Animal experimentation is a debatable subject when it comes to animal cruelty. A majority of the population sees it as cruelty, while others see it as science. In many cases the animals used for experimentation are treated badly, but on the flip side animal experimentation is what can be used to save people’s lives. People are so quick to look at the bad side of things before they can see or even accept the fact that through the testing, it helps them. There have been studies that have shown that two thirds of animal experimentation has nothing to do with advancing human medicine or curing human diseases (Animal & Primate Experimentation). Some of the testing though has helped find vaccines for many disease’s such as herpes simplex, hepatitis B, Polio, rabies, malaria, mumps and virus related to organ transplant rejection (Shandilya, Ranjan).
When faced with a situation where animal cruelty is shown, speaking up is the only way you can help the animals. Whether it is neglect or apparent abuse to the animal, they are unable to take care of themselves. That is why there are organizations like the humane society to help remove the animals from the settings they are in and place them in a more suitable position. The most common types of cases that the humane society is faced with are animal hoarding, and severe neglect. If the situation doesn’t look severe, the owners of the animals will sometimes be given a second chance to clean up and take proper care of their animals, then do a return visit to see if there has been any improvement (Report Animal Cruelty).
Animal cruelty is not something that should be ignored. No animal deserves to be neglected or intentionally harmed. When one comes across a situation where it is apparent that there is abuse or neglect, they need to contact law enforcements so the owner of the animal can either get some kind of help and guidance with how to take care of the animals, or to have the animals taken away from them and placed in proper areas where they can be correctly taken care of and cared for.

Works Cited
"Animal Abuse: Starving Horses Seized from Rescue - Harrodsburg, KY | Pet-Abuse.Com Animal Cruelty Database." Pet-Abuse.Com. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .
"Animal Cruelty." Pet-Abuse.Com. n.a Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .
"Animal Cruelty Facts and Statistics : The Humane Society of the United States." The Humane Society of the United States : The Humane Society of the United States. 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .
"Animal Cruelty Laws State By State." Stray Pet Advocacy.n.a Web. 16 Mar. 2012. http://www.straypetadvocacy.org/PDF/AnimalCrueltyLaws.pdf
"Animal & Primate Experimentation - Cruelty or "Science"?" Animal Experimentation, Primate Experimentation : Save The Primates. 2007. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .
"Dog Fighting and Cockfighting." ASPCA. 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .