Breaking the cycle of animal cruelty

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Updated 4:12 PM Friday, March 5, 2010

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

— Thomas Edison

The pattern is almost too predictable.

A horrible case of animal neglect or cruelty occurs. An arrest is made. A newspaper story is written, drawing the attention of TV news crews and the entire region. Outraged readers and viewers call for justice — and demand that something be done. Officials condemn the act and pledge to take action.

And yet it happens again and again.

Many Butler County residents were still angry over the abandonment of a beagle mother and her pups during last month’s snowstorm when the latest atrocity against an animal occurred.

The beating death of “Masterpiece,” a 3-month-old alpaca, has brought widespread attention to Butler County — and specifically, to the Madison Twp. farm from which he was taken — and again left residents indignant and seething over an act of cruelty against an innocent, defenseless creature. Two 17-year-old males have been charged with killing the animal, valued at $8,000, and a 22-year-old woman has been charged with complicity to the crime. Many of our readers have called for the proverbial book to be thrown at the culprits, if they are found guilty.

Some of those same readers did not miss the irony of a feature story in this newspaper last week about a Butler County insurance agent who proudly recounted a recent controlled hunting adventure in which he literally stabbed to death a boar — an experience he had included on his “bucket list” of things to do before he dies.

Clearly society has different standards about when it’s acceptable to kill an animal. One killing is condemned and prosecuted; the other is celebrated. Does this really make sense? Does the appearance of the animal — cute and cuddly vs. repulsive and aggressive — help determine those standards? Or is it the animal’s value to us? Why do we find the killing of one particular animal to be so upsetting, and then casually drive by roadkill every day with an averted glance?

Or do the circumstances of an animal’s treatment determine our reaction? We accept that hundreds of stray or unwanted cats and dogs are humanely “put to sleep” every year in our county because there are not enough responsible owners to adopt them. And we certainly accept the slaughter — humanely, we hope — of a variety of animals that will provide meals for us and our families this week; and we give prizes to sportsmen who bring in the largest kill.

At the same time, we look at our own pets — dogs, cats, goldfish — differently. We give them cute names, bring them into our homes, cuddle and coddle them, and ascribe certain human characteristics to them. Some of us treat them like our own children. And we think of our own beloved pets suffering when an act of cruelty occurs.

Perhaps that is, at least partly, an explanation for our ferocious reaction to the killing of an adorable animal like Masterpiece, the all-too-frequent and difficult-to-hide neglect of horses in rural areas, and the cruel indifference to our canine friends during a particularly bitter winter like the one now concluding.

All these animals are all living, sentient creatures of God — not unlike ourselves — but we cling to the notion that they are ours to pamper, to cage, to love ... or to hunt down and kill as sport. We’re not defending the accused young men but, to a 17-year-old mind, it must all be confusing. We owe them — and others like them — our wisdom and our help.

The sad stories of animal abuse, of course, do not compare to the tragedy of domestic violence against women and children, another all-too-frequent occurrence. But the American Humane Association appears to be correct when it points to a strong link between animal abuse and domestic violence. “Animal cruelty problems are people problems,” the association says on its Web site. “When animals are abused, people are at risk.”

That belief was confirmed by Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones and State Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton, at a press conference last week to discuss the alpaca case and to propose legislation to toughen animal-abuse laws and provide intervention for young offenders. Rep. Tim Derickson, R-Hanover Twp., has pointed to a study indicating that 40 percent of youths who abuse animals go on to commit crimes against people.

Clearly we, as a “civilized” society, have serious issues to resolve about violence and the answers won’t be found in shoot-’em-up video games or in popular culture that glorifies caged fights and guns. Ours is a violent society, and most of the time, the violence is kept hidden from us. That’s the way we like it. Please pass the bacon and don’t cross the yellow police tape.

We’re as disturbed as the next person about what happened to the alpaca, but some perspective is needed. We all should be more distressed by the shooting death of a Butler County woman — by her husband allegedly, in the presence of her children — in a quiet suburban neighborhood last month, as well as other cases of domestic violence in our communities. We should be most alarmed by the violence against people that we read about every day and, in some unfortunate instances, stand witness to.

But when it comes to animal abuse, we’re sending a mixed message, at best, to young people by sanctioning and praising some forms of violence against animals and then condemning others. We really need to figure this out — or we’ll just continue repeating the same behavior and experiencing the same sense of outrage.

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

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