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Kelly OConnor
ENC 2135
Hector Mojena
1/18/15
Rise Against Animal Cruelty

Just about everyone is an animal pet lover whether its cats, dogs, hamsters or a goldfish.
When you think of pets, you typically think of the owner/owners loving their pets to death but
have you ever stopped to think about the owners who neglect their pets? Probably not right?
Because no one wants to think about that or even think that someone could do that to their pet
but the sad fact is, is that it happens more than you think. Even though you don't want to think
about it and try to push the thought of animals being abused to the back of your mind that doesn't
change the fact that it still happens every day. There are so many problems with dealing with the
issue of animal abuse such as having people report the issue, having law enforcement enforce the
consequences of animal abuse laws and even that fact that animal abuse happens in processing
plants.
One organization that is very well known for trying to save animals from abuse and does
what they can, to put an end to all forms animal abuse is the American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
is a community of people who have come together to help animals who are unable to protect
themselves. The ASPCA was founded in 1866 and is a non-profit organization whose one and
only goal is to save these helpless animals from harm no matter if it's from the initial
investigation of the alleged abuse or the end of the rescue and placing one of these animals into a
safe and caring home. This community of people has come together because they believe that
animals have feelings just like us and should not have to suffer because they cant protect
themselves from it. They are most well know for the heartbreaking commercials showing us

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what these animals have been through by telling horror stories of how they have been hurt and
challenge us to become a part of their cause by donating money to support the animals that they
have rescued. The ASPCA even goes one step further and assigns an animal to you so that you
can see exactly where your money is going. If you take a minute to visit their website, they
explain the entire process they go through to save these animals. They tell you how they rescue
the animals, place each one in a home and protect them. They also have a portion of their website
dedicated to how you can help such as donations, fundraising, and adoption. They explain all
different types of animal abuse ranging from dogfights and puppy mills to factory farming and
horse slaughter among other things.
When we go to the grocery store and buy a steak trying to decide which cut behind the
glass looks the best or which package of bacon has the most fat on it; all we think about is if the
meat looks good, not where it came from or how it got there. But if we took a second to
understand the process that goes on behind the scenes you probably wouldnt want to but that
steak or bacon. Most processing plants dont care about the animals at all; the only thing they
care about is how much meat they can produce so they can make more money and the animals
suffer at the expense of this. These food-processing plants torcher these helpless animals so bad
in the awful living conditions they put them in that the animals are willing to kill themselves so
that they dont have to endure the pain and suffering any longer. On a daily basis, all the animals
that are raised in these food-processing plants are fed extreme doses of antibiotics to fight off
life-threatening bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella that has come about due to the horrible
living conditions. For example, the plants will cram chickens into a wire cage so tightly that they
can barely move, and the wire under their feet is unbearable. Their feathers begin to fall out, and
they start to go crazy to the point that they peck each other to death. The food processing plants

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dont care about the chickens, all they care about is the fact that they are alive so that they can
make money so to prevent them from pecking each other to death the processing plant cuts their
beaks off. For the pigs, they put them in cages where they are front to back, their faces in the
butts of the pigs in front of them and due to stress the pigs begin to chew on the tails of the pigs
in front of them until they chew the entire tail off. So to prevent the pigs from doing this the
processing plant cuts the tails off of the pigs with no anesthetics. The reason the processing plant
cuts the tails off is that when the animals chew the tails off there is a chance of infection, and the
plants don't want sick pigs because when there are sick pigs, there is no money. I could go on and
on with stories of animals being mistreated in processing plants, but I think I've made my point
that they are clearly living miserable and painful lives.
In recent years, this has been brought up and debated about how to deal with this
situation. The people who own the processing plants claim that there is no other way to mass
produce food and make the animals happy because they claim it would be too expensive. But
there is one farm in Virginia that is determined to change that. This farm is called the Polyface
farm, owned by Joel Salatin, allows all the animals there to roam the land and live happy lives
until their time comes to be processed. Salatin believes that the animals he raises should be able
to live the lives they were naturally meant to live. This farm has even made sure the animals are
killed respectfully. He does the slaughtering himself because he feels that he would do it more
humanely than any other processing plant would. The Polyface Farm allows locals to come in
and watch the slaughtering of the animals so that people understand what is happening and to
show them that they respect their animals; Salatin calls the food with a face which scares some
people off but is a reality he feels should be known. This farm is only able to sell locally because

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they do not produce in abundance, but I believe that if these farms began to pop up all over
America, we could end animal cruelty in processing plants altogether.
Animal cruelty happens daily in more ways than one, and we have clearly established
that at this point. The main things you think of when someone says animal cruelty is the animals
being rejected by their owners, beaten and starved or you think of the pain and misery the
animals go through in processing plants but do you ever thing about what comes next? What
most people don't think about is what is the next step in stopping this, and the answer is law
enforcement. What you are probably thinking right about now is "If there are laws against animal
cruelty, why are they not being enforced and putting an end to animal cruelty?" Well, the reason
is in a recent study the ASPCA has determined that the knowledge in dealing with animal cruelty
crimes in law enforcement officers is minimal because they have not been appropriately trained
to deal with such situations. They collected this information from officers first hand through a
survey. This survey, taken nationwide, proved that law enforcement officers were not properly
trained in how to deal with and enforce animal cruelty laws and how to access cruelty cases. It
was also reported in the survey that very few people call in to report animal cruelty cases and
when these cases were reported the study also found that only 41 percent of law enforcement
officers knew of the animal cruelty laws and only 30 percent knew of the punishment of these
laws. Animal cruelty is not thought of as being extreme as murder or other crimes but what
people have failed to recognize is that is still a crime. People have failed to recognize this
because law enforcement is not doing their job of enforcing animal cruelty laws and this needs to
change.
Another thing that has been created to help people deal with this situation of animal
cruelty and how to deal with it is the plan "Practical Guidance for the Effective Response by

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Veterinarians to Suspected Animal Cruelty, Abuse, and Neglect." This plan was put together by
the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) done jointly with its own Committee the
"Human-Animal Bond and the American Humane Association. Together they created a manual
that lays out the signs and symptoms of abused animals to help veterinarians see the abused
animals from the non-abused animals and how to deal with the situations. This guide was created
to help give veterinarians a protocol when dealing with suspected animal cruelty. I think that this
is very important because no one sees more animals than veterinarians and they should know
how to differentiate between healthy and beaten animals. I view this as the equivalent to if
someone is beaten in their home and goes to the hospital to have the wounds addressed, the
hospital staff is trained to see that these wounds aren't there by accident and should report the
issue to the police. Just because it is the animal that is being harmed should not change the
outcome, whoever is doing the beating whether its on an animal or human should be punished
accordingly.
In recent years, animal cruelty is beginning to surface, and people are starting to take
action to put and end to it once and for all. The ASPCA is working towards having law
enforcement officers more informed on animal cruelty laws so that they can do their part in
putting an end to this. I am a strong believer in this community and would love to singlehandedly put and end to it myself, so animals no longer have to suffer but sadly that isn't the
case. I will do what I can to help the animals through volunteering at the Humane Society like I
did when I lived in Miami because the feeling of knowing you are helping these animals that
need you will never compare to anything else. The only thing right now that people, like you and
I can do, is raising awareness. People need to know that life isn't all fun and games, and as much
as we hate to hear it animals are abused on a daily basis and the sooner the world accepts that

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and stops looking the other way, the sooner we can help these poor animals in need. When
people are stubborn and don't want to believe this is happening and claim all those stories are
made up the first then I do is ask them if they have a pet and 99% of people say yes. When they
tell me this I ask them what they would do if something happened to their pet and the people
always flip out and say things like "I don't know how I could live with myself if I let something
happen to him!" or "She's my best friend I don't know what I would do without her!" and then
they realize that their pets feel the same way towards them. Once I make that point, I explain that
these animals that need to be rescued felt that way about their owners, but their owners didn't
care about them and left them to die or beat them. Usually, once I make the point that this is what
most of the animals the need to be rescued go through is when I catch their attention, and they
begin to understand the importance of what we are trying to do. These animals trusted the wrong
people not knowing any better, and it's up to us to save them because no one else will, and I am
proud to be a part of this community of people who are so loving and willing to dedicate there
time to such an amazing cause to save lives.

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Work Cited
Whitcomb, Rachael. "Improvement needed on animal cruelty identification, reporting,
ASPCA says." DVM Newsmagazine Feb. 2011: 38. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.
An Animals Place The New Your Times Magazine, Michael Pollan, 10 November
2002. 25 January 2016.
http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/an-animals-place/
Animal Cruelty ASPCA. ASPCA Pet Health Insurance, 2016. Web. 31 January 2016.