Our final blog post will examine one of our second most important reasons why society should not only take animal abuse seriously, but improve the ways in which it is disciplined. There is much reason to believe that the gap between animal neglect and child abuse or public violence is closing in more each year. The anger and instability that a person feels to harm something smaller and less defensive than him/herself can be a strong indicator of their mindset. Although I understand that there are millions of cases in America alone of animal abuse, I believe that in the middle to severe cases where a ruling of probation and a fee are given there needs to be an investigation into the home life of that individual. When a person expresses the desire to force violence upon a pet in any way, what’s to say they will refrain from the same type of anger with family members? Also, there is a vicious circle that occurs when young adults are abused as children because they usually begin to harm small wild animals, and move towards other animals and possibly people like small children, who then are given the pain that their abuser felt.As a result of this abuse, people take their anger and aggression on something or someone that they find weaker than them. They use the others lack of defense as an excuse to build themselves up. Animals unfortunately catch the bad end of these bad situations too many times. Animals are put into homes or exploited against there will at their own expense and put into danger. We need to be more aware as a nation of the growing problem that our country faces. There needs to be a stop to the unnecessary abuse, and in that process abuse as a whole can be decreased; from animals to children to domestic. So join us in helping end abuse by starting with our furry friends!

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/188677.pdf