Dear Sacramento Bee,

Imagine yourself as an animal. Imagine being the one getting beaten, burned, tortured, starved, or even killed every day. These poor animals do not deserve this! They deserve help, friendship, and respect. They are not any less important than others on this earth.

Whether you want to admit it or not every single one of us have either been a abuser or a bi-stander of an animal abuse. I know I have, I have not ever abused a animal nor will I ever but I have witnessed it before. Here is one example, when I was very young maybe 7 or 8 I witnessed a cat that was very malnourished and hurt being thrown down a two story building. This was wrong and I felt bad but I was to scared to do anything. Being scared is normal and most everyone is but being a bi-stander is just as bad as the abuser. If we all stuck together though we could over power the abusers and save these poor animals.

The facts and statistics about animal abuse will just tear your heart apart. More than 300,00 of all types of animals are killed every year due to animal abuse! Whether it be they are tortured, burned, shot, stabbed or even worse mutilated. Every single one of these are wrong, I mean what if this was you or your child? You would care then so why don’t you now. Even if you don’t take part in animal abuse anytime you see a occurance of it call the humane society in your area or the police to take care of it if you don’t want to yourself. Anything you do to help no matter how small will make a difference.

“I can’t wrap my brain around how people could even come to the thought of hurting an animal, it’s just cruel,” states Elissa, a middle school teacher. I agree with this, whether you grow up with animals or not does not give you any reason to be harmful to them. Animals are usually only attack or harm if you harm them first or they got brought up under a abusive family. Treat animals how you would treat your own kid , or a baby, or even someone you don’t know. Treat them nice, kind, discipline them in a loving way. Just over all treat them as a part of your family because in the end that's what they are. If you don’t want another family member then don’t get a pet but do treat all others with respect.

As you can see animal abuse is wrong in every single direction you look. Treat animals right, even if you don’t have any help others understand how important this concept is. All animals deserve a healthy happy life help them get this anyway you can.

Sincerely,


Lily S.