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Halee Jackson
Mrs. Aughenbaugh
English 12
07 February 2014
Animal Rights
An estimated twenty million animals are abused for cruel, archaic teaching exercises,
despite the existence of superior non-animal teaching tools. Over twenty-five to 100 million
vertebrate animals of which few are the closest relatives to man were reported to be used for
animal testing in the U.S. Chimpanzees, monkeys, dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, birds and farm
animals were used for experimenting (“Facts about Animal Abuse and Domestic Violence”).
There should be more strict laws against the abuse of animals, puppy mills, and cruel testing on
animals.
Puppy mills are also knows as puppy farms, large scale commercial dog breeding
operations that put greater priority on profits than the well-being of the dogs. The water and food
provided is often contaminated, crawling with bugs. Puppies in the mills are often found with
bleeding and swollen paws, feet falling through the wires of the cages, infections, and
dehydration. Most of the puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills. The Puppy mills sell
the puppies to the pet stores at a low cost and then the pet stores greatly increase the price. The
money made from selling the puppies then goes back to the puppy mills to support them and
allow them to continue to breed the dogs. Row after row, shelf after shelf full of crates, each is
filled with a dozen or more puppies. The crates are crowded with feces and urine, which hurts
and can damage the animals’ paws. Most of the animals coming from puppy mills are unhealthy
and infested with parasites and viruses. In 2000, in Quebec, a mill was littered with piles of dead,
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partially eaten dogs, some even hanging from rafters. Puppy mill operators crank out up to
seventy different breeds. They just want to produce as many as they can, as fast as they can, and
as cheap as they can. Animals do not get the attention that they need at pet shops, so they can
keep expenses down to maximize profits.
Animals are not to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment or abuse in anyway.
Rodeos are shows of dominance over animals that result in serious injuries, without the
protection of cruelty laws. Bull riding is a disturbing spectacle of the domination of captive
animals. Non-human animals are deprived of their freedom and forced to perform in the circus
ring. Animals are used for crude classroom dissections exercises; they drown rabbits and embalm
cats while still alive so the companies can sell to schools for dissections in labs. Millions of
mice, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs and other animals are locked inside cold, barren cages in
laboratories. They languish in pain, ache with loneliness, and long to roam free and use their
minds. At a military trauma training drill they improperly anesthetized goats and had their limbs
cut off with tree trimmers. Biological supply houses breed mice, rats, and rabbits. They obtain
fetal pigs from slaughterhouses that cut them from their mothers’ bodies after the mothers’ are
killed. They also trap or take other animals to different locations for testing. The EU has banned
the sale of any cosmetics or cosmetics ingredients that have been tested on animals. They use
rabbit’s to see how long it takes a chemical to burn away the cornea of their eye. It has led to the
development of test methods that can look directly at cellular mechanisms rather than the
animals.
Thomas Huggins, 25, was arrested for chopping his dog up into four pieces and put them
into his freezer. Come dinner time, he put the ribs in the crock pot and ate them. Later on that
night his mother found her pit-bull puppy’s head in the trash can and the remaining’s of his body
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Thomas chopped up. Another terrible example of animal cruelty is the case of, Rebecca Keith
and her two daughters who were charged with animal cruelty after police found eighty dead
animals inside their home. They found animals stashed in the refrigerator, some wrapped in
plastic and others just laying around that were left to die.
People need to stop buying from pet stores because they help benefit these cruel puppy
mills. They need to adopt pets from shelters, these are animals who were neglected and or abused
and need new homes. If you sign on websites such as the ASPCA to donate money to the
animals that are in the shelters it helps pay for any surgeries or anything the animals need.700
veterinarians located in thirty-four states help people obtain affordable procedures for more than
40,000 cats and dogs (“Puppy Mills, Pet Shops, and the AKC Basic Facts”).
Pit-bull dogs are the most common victims of cruelty of 1,880 in 2009 ( Facts about
Animal Abuse and Domestic Violence). People with emotional problems may beat, shoot, stab
animals, or set them on fire. Those who are violent to animals are likely to be violent to family
members or people close to them. Cruelty to animals is often very difficult to prove. No one ever
notices tight collars, the whip lashings on their bodies, beatings and deprivation of food. Abusers
kill, harm, or threaten children’s pets to coerce them into sexual abuse or to force them to remain
silent about abuse. Disturbed children kill or harm animals to emulate their parents’ conduct, to
prevent the abuser from killing the pet or take out the aggressions on another victim. Animal
cruelty problems are people problems, when animals are abused, people are at risk. Pets may
suffer unexplained injuries, health problems, and permanent disabilities at the hands of abusers
or they disappear from home.
Every year more than 100 million animals suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food,
and cosmetic testing as well as biology lessons, medical training and curiosity riven medical
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experiments at universities. The animals sit and wait in fear of the next terrifying and painful
procedure to be performed on them. Millions of rats, rabbits, primates, cats, dogs and others are
locked inside cold cages in laboratories. They shake and cower in fear whenever someone walks
past their cages and their blood pressure spikes drastically. After enduring lives of pain,
loneliness, and terror, almost all of the animals are killed Animals deserve to live their lives free
from suffering and exploitation. An animal right is a social movement that challenges society’s
traditional view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use.
With this information given about animal abuse that occurs on a daily basis, hopefully
people can learn the proper way to care for their animals and the difficulty that comes with
taking care of an animal. Lots of people do not know half the stuff that people do to animals and
how they are tortured.
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Works Cited
“Animal Abuse Statistics-THE FACTS.” Animal Abuse Statistics-THE FACTS.
ASPCA, 2014. Web. 15 Jan 2014.
“Animal Cruelty Facts and Statistics: The Humane Society of the United States.” RSS. The
Human Society of the United States, 2014. Web. 12 Jan 2014.
“Facts about Animal Abuse and Domestic Violence.” Facts about Animal Abuse and Domestic
Violence. American Humane Association, 2013. Web. 13 Jan 2014
“Puppy Mills, Pet Shops, and the AKC Basic Facts.” Friends of Animals. American Kennel
Club, 2014. Web. 07 2014.
“The Issues.” PETA Issues. PETA, 2014. Web. 12 Jan 2014.