Animal abuse. Animal Cruelty. Dogs fights.
They're all disgusting!

Is this what you want our world do be like? Do you want animals suffering because their owners are too stupid to realise what they're doing?
NO!

Join Facebook, and join this group Stop Dog Fighting.

Join today, save the animals of tomorrow.

Help put an end to the abuse!

Sardine, there's another really great way to help too. Go to..what is it, care2.org, I think. I joined there a while ago. You can sign petitions favoring all sorts of different topics. Stopping child abuse, animal abuse, women's rights and health issues.. You might be interested ^^

I hate abuse of all life, human and animal, and I try to do my part to end both cruelty to humans, and cruelty to animals.

I'll check out your web sites!

*nods* Everyone is really friendly at care2.org. I get the petitions emailed to me so I don't miss them(which actually makes me lazy in responding), so I haven't logged into my account in a while. But everyone there is so nice. I made friends so quickly and they send me happy birthday and holiday comments.. it's so nice.

Yeah that Live Earth concert a while ago? It was sponsored by the care2 site. But it's really inspired me a lot. Inspired me so much I vowed to myself to pick up one piece of trash-if not two, while walking to and from the bus stop or to and from the school.

EDIT: I guess it's care2.com, but it should redirect you regardless.

I agree animal cruelty is just plain wrong which is why when i see animals being abused I call the local animal shelter or i convince the owners that the best thing for their animal is to take it to the shelter if they dont Ill take the animal myself and wont let them see it. Yes i have threatened to do that to a few people.

I've never seen anyone abusing an animal... o.o *crosses fingers/must be fortunate*

I havent seen anyone physically hitting a dog or cat but not being able to afford food for the animal is abuse to me. and i have seen that alot lately

That is so sad. I've rescued a few stray cats lately and found new homes for them.

I rescued a beautiful black cat last January. He was obviously a stray, and it was very cold (-20-25C), so I started feeding him, and put out a box with towels for him to keep warm in. When he finally let me pick him up and take him in, he was just skin and bones.

I'm happy to say he's fine now. I'm trying to find another home for him because he doesn't get along with my elderly Siamese (they totally hate each other), but he's a really neat cat, and I really like him.

Sadly, I know that there are more like him out there.

*sigh* I know :/

There's this woman I ran into at the place we adopted our cat from, she was talking about how stray animals just randomly show up at her door so she takes them in and feeds them.

I have another friend who's also like that. They get a handful of strays "knocking" at their door, but what her mom does is feed them and lets them remain as strays. Those cats get fed shrimp..they're spoiled. But it's a really cute story.

I'd love to do something like that. I've also been rolling around the desire to train a guide dog in the future to help the disabled.

There was a squished blue tongue lizard on the road today. Yeah I know it's not abuse but . . . I have a soft spot for lizards so I was all :( about it.

Anyway . . . my mum is thinking about getting into the programs where you look after the injured animals after bushfires. We live out in a country town and we always get fires comming pretty close so they are always looking for more people to help out. I would love it . . . :D

Those of you who've mentioned taking in strays, God bless. I grew up in rural Tennessee, and we were bobmarded with strays. There was a lot of animal dumping going on. Also, people would move and leave their animals behind--sometimes chained or penned up. The Humane Society in many rural communities is often overrun or so stifled by red tape that they can only accomplish a small amount. We took in as many as came along, and rescued ones we found--on the sides of roads, abandoned in pens and cages in backyards, dumped in parking lots (by people who would try selling puppies and kittens at local stores, only to leave the ones they couldn't sell).

Still, through it all I learned that there is much more to the humane treatment of animals than feeding them. Many people, I've found, dump animals not because they cannot afford food, but medical care. Therefore, many strays have injuries and parasite infestations that need veterinary attention. I volunteered at a nearby vet, and learned how to take care of many of these things at home--from setting broken bones and dislocated bird wings (a delicate procedure as the bones break easily), to giving CPR to a newborn puppy that's not breathing. Then, too, there are times an animal is beyond such care. A veterinarian can give an animal a shot to take care of such situations (and often will do so at no cost), but when you live an hour away from the nearest vet... Well, that's a long time for an injured animal to suffer if you know it can't be helped. It broke my heart every time, but I have had to shoot 3 dogs and break a bird's neck once. This was not out of cruelty, but quite the opposite. Sometimes a quick and painless death (and I learned from the vet I worked for how to make sure it was painless) is the only humane option. If that weren't the case, the vet wouldn't have that particular shot on hand.

The reason I share that is so that some of you who may be thinking about taking in strays or other displaced animals may know that there is sometimes a 'dark' side to compassion. You need to know that it's not all about petting and feeding cuddly little creatures. It's sometimes about waking up every two hours durring the night to nurse a newbon puppy--whose mother has died on the side of the road with her pups still in her--with an eyedropper. It's sometimes about pushing a bone back into a socket; or spending hours carefully shaving the area around a wound and digging hair, dirt, gravel, worms, and sometimes bullets or BB's out of those wounds; or dressing severe burns; or any number of other things which cause the animal you are trying to help great pain. And it's sometimes about killing. Euthenasia is never an easy thing, but it is sometimes necessary. I got sick to my stomach each time; I've had nightmares; I don't really like writing about it now, and I'm greateful it's been a long time since I've been faced with such a task.

So, if you doun't think you are capable of causing an animal pain in order to save its life, or of killing an animal in order to end its suffering, you can find ways to get involved that won't require such (adopt animals from your local humane society to make room for others, for instance). If you are capable, my advice is talk to your nearest vet. Find out what you're in for, and how they can help you. The truth is, vets come out of college as deeply in debt as doctors yet make a pitance in comparisson; they do it out of a profound desire to help the animals they care about, and they will be glad to have your help as well.

There was a time I debated on working in a shelter.. and then I found this one guy's article on his experience working a week at one-and I couldn't do it. He talked about how he had to experience his first euthanization and at the point from reading I knew I'd never be able to handle it. So kudos to you, Lethal. Even reading about it was bad enough

Thanks for your thoughtful post, Lethal. I know that what you say is true. You are very brave (and obviously a true Hufflepuff! ;) ).

I find it very heart-rending and stressful when I have to give first aid to an animal. Fortunately I haven't had to give euthanasia often. It really tears me up.

When I take in a stray cat (I don't have room for dogs), I always look after them myself, because I know the local animal shelters are over-full these days. And I keep them and look after them until I can find a good home for them. The vet always laughs when I come in. "Got another one, do you?" she'll say.

So true . . . I've only had to do it once but it is certaintly a horrifying experience that I will certaintly never forget.

Unfortunately that isn't true for all vets. One of the local vets here is completlely horrid. One of my friends volunteered there for an extreamly short time and she was completely appalled by his treatment of the animals he was intrusted to take care of. To make matters worse is that there isn't really anything that we can do about him as its a case of his word against hers and to make things worse my friend has a bad record of being a trouble maker

Hey

It's been a while.

Vets.. well, a lot of them are in it for the money. My sister's boyfriend is a vet, and my sister is on her way to becoming a vet. So i'm quite clued-in on animal care and that sort of thing. Where I live (Somerset West, South Africa), we don't get large amounts of strays like in America, but we also don't have proper SPCA's or humane societies. So it's just as bad, if not worse, than in America.

Everytime I see an animal without a home, I want to take it in and foster it, but a.) my dad's allergic to dogs and cats, and b.) we don't have the money.

So, i'm going to try and get a few friends, along with myself, to volunteer at our SPCA, and start making a difference, one animal at a time.

People are so ignorant, especially when it comes to animals.

Yeah Sardine, most of us can only improve things one animal at a time, one person at a time.

If more people tried to do that, there would be a lot less problems.

Our neighbours take in a lot of strays . . . unfortunately they don't particullary keep too good a care of them and let them roam around all night so I'm sure we have a tone of dead native animals no thanks to them.

Sure the strays business is sad and all but I'm more for the native animals we have here, especially considering how many are becomming extinct because of us, and where I live the strays are pretty much all taken care of . . . I think we have only ever had to take in two dogs over my whole life because there was no one else or they hadn't already been claimed or whatever.

Oh wait there is a litter of stray cats that live under my school . . . everyone feeds them but no one has bothered to take 'em. Don't think they could if they tried though, since they have been there for so long. There quite friendly though. :)

Unfortunately thats true but there still are a lot of good people out there. We once helped get a wallaby out of a uncovered drain pipe back when all the new roads and stuff where getting put in and it was great how many people hung around to help . . . took us hours to get him out though and it was well after dark before we managed it :)

:)

I want to join shark protection programs.
Before I was all "Don't kill animals, except spiders and insects", but now I actually let them live, which is amazing (I HATE spiders).

But I want to try and raise money for animal shelters and such.

It's funny how we care more about orphaned and sick animals, than we do for people o_O