Animal Cruelty and Pet Ownership

So this week we've seen a big campaign about animal cruelty in the UK, this is a subject close to my heart as i once helped out at a vets for a while and got to see it up close.

Domestic pets being abused has happened for a long time but lately it seems to have gotten worse, cats being thrown off of tower blocks, dogs being abandoned and various animals being shot with air rifles or being set on fire. What has happened to our society, are kids just bored? I think it's time we introduced some proper legeslation regarding pet ownership, and so here are my ideas for the law to be created.

1. Anyone purchasing a pet should legally be required to have insurance arranged for it. If someone sells a pet to someone else without them having insurance, then they should be up for a massive fine anda ban frm selling animals, and the purchaser should also incur a massive fine and a ban from owning any animals, for life.

2. Many pet abusers are often banned from owning them for a limited number of years. This should be changed to a blanket ban, if someone abuses an animal then they should be banned for life from keeping animals, and if found to be keeping animals should be imprisoned.

3. All pets should be electronically tagged so that if abandoned the owners can be prosecuted.

These are my ideas, i have had 3 cats and have always had insurance, it just makes sense and has actually paid for itself many times over. I have also had them tagged and this was useful as one of them got run over once. He died but at least i found out what happened to him.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

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Although I agree with your sentiment, I fear that this would only serve to foment a black market of common domestic pets.

Perhaps there are portions of your suggestion which would still work well though.

Sorry to hear about that. I have two wonderful Russian Blues (one blue the other white) that are amazing additions to our family. They are THE MOST trusting and loving cats I have ever met. We don't even have to clip their nails because they never use them expcet on their toys. They follow us around like dogs, and the boy even plays fetch.

Anway, I've gushed enough.

I don't know about the UK, but pet insurance in the US is a huge racket, and not worth a dime.

I think the pet laws here are pretty good, although they aren't enacted or enforced nearly enough.

If you want my honest opinion? I think anyone sadistic enough to truly harm an animal for fun or even out of frustration should get a bullet between the eyes. I know, pretty heavy, but I think we'd have a lot less stupid people in the world if we just started ridding our world of them now.

While I agree with people been prosecuted for Animal cruelty I will never ever submit my pets with anything that I would not want on myself.

So electronic devices implanted on me or my animals is a nono, now for licenses and insurance I would agree to some point but depending how much profitable this will become for the money makers out there.

I own three pets and never in my mind I could possible picture them been in any inflicted pain by somebody's hands as I regard them as part of the family, but I have seen how others around love to have pets to abuse them and neglect them.

Sad but is part of human nature for some to treat the lesser forms of life as nothing more than expendable things.

The sad thing is that people don't value pets, they see them as expendable. Plenty more out there, often for free.

Pet ownership is a serious thing and should be viewed as such.
I'd like to think most people do.
But there are some nasty people with violent tendancies that see animals as easy prey. Or worse, experimental devices. Animals can't call authorities for help.

You can dispose of an animals body easily versus a human body.
Nobody questions finding animal remains.
For all the cases documented, you can bet there are plenty more that are never found out.
It's a very sad situation, I don't know if there will ever be an answer.
People are still tortured and murdered, we haven't solved that one yet.

My cats are my babies, I look after them as I do myself.
First and foremost they are all spayed and neutered, I think thats the biggest gift you can give to a pet.

Yep it would of course cause a black market, supply and demand is powerful. However it's not liek it would be as big as drugs, it would be quite easy to regulate and control it.



No problem, my cats have good lives so when one dies it's not a big thing because i know they lived well. When he came to us he was literally feral, calmed down after a few years. Some kids kicked him about and he crawled back home to us, it cost £1108 to have him fixed. If i hadn't had insurance i coudln't have afforded it and he'd have ben put down. That's my point about insurance i suppose, it's about responsibility. Sadly he died of a random blood clot a couple of years ago.



It's quite different here, pet insurance costs me around 7 pounds (roughly 14 dollars) a month. One of my pets as mentioned above cost me over 1000 pounds (again roughly 2000 dollars) to have treated. That means the insurance has paid for itself for about 14 years lol. As long as my premiums don't go up to much anyway



Not sure about the bullet, but a full spcyhological assessment is a good idea. There was a case here in the UK where kids threw a cat off of a tower block 7 or 8 times and filmed it, poor thing survived. Another case where a cat was kicked to death because it walked through the house with muddy paws. I'm sorry but no normal person would kill an animal over such a thing.



Hang on that's a little different. I would never support chipping humans but chipping animals has real benefits and no real downside.



I don't think a license is the correct idea, just a law that you must have insurance if you own a pet and a careful regulation of the insurance companies so that they can't raise prices just because they know people need insurance.



Well as stated above one of my cats had his leg broken by some kids kicking him. At the time several cats had been hung from the local schools goalposts. He was an aggressive cat so i think maybe they tried to get a hold of him, he tore them apart and they kicked him. Broke his hip and cracked his skull.



That's why if they're caught they should have a lifetime ban from keeping animals and if they break it then imprisonment.

I understand the idea, but consider the impact this would have on people that can't afford insurance. Surely, pets are better off with an owner (regardless of insurance) opposed to roaming as wild animals. If you take away the ability to keep pets, then those pets will just turn into roadkill instead.



no argument there...



by electrically tagged, do you mean implanted with a chip? If so, I would consider THAT animal cruelty. Also, how do you determine the difference between a pet that ran away, and a pet that was abandoned?

I am very hesitant when it comes to creating more laws (which in turn create more criminals). Do we really need more people being punished? I think we are more in need of education and understanding opposed to negative reinforcement.

Currently animals are put down very often as they cannot be homed. Responsible breeding would be created by the ideas i'm promoting. Supply and demand i suppose.



Forgive me yes i meant chipped. I will speak from personal expereicne on two counts.

1. A cat of mine climbed into a plumbers van, he only discovered him when he was about 40 miles away, curled up behind his toolbox (his words). The tag i had put on his collar he had somehow ripped off (he did that a lot), i went through maybe 40 plastic collar tags. The only way to identify him was the chip, luckily the nice plumber took him to a vet and i was able to get my cat back.

2. My cat who got run over was chipped. The chip told the vet who the owner was, if i hadn't chipped the cat then i would never have known what had happened to my poor pet and i got to bury him. I know that might sound stupid but it meant a lot to me as i would have always wondered otherwise.

You are right education is good, however these aren't people who care about education, someone who kicks a cat to death can't be educated.

As far as I know, pet insurance is not that common in the U.S. I think it's been tried a number of times but never really took off.

I recently had a kitty that got cancer. It would have cost more than a year's income for him to have radiation and chemotherapy, and even then there was no guarantee he'd live. I would have given anything to be able to save him; as it was I had him put to sleep when the pain got too severe.

There are people who get enormous amounts of animal insurance and then kill them for the insurance money--race horses are an example that comes to mind.

There is no way I know of to prevent animal cruelty completely--it can be done so easily without anyone knowing. Insurance would help prevent neglect, but probably not abuse. I'm all for stiffer penalties for abusers.

Maybe if it was made more socially unacceptable, that would raise awareness somewhat.

One of the reasons I am against the RFID is because studies has shown that they could cause cancer on pets.

.

www.rfidupdate.com...

In my case I had pets all my life and I have never lost any yet, so I rely on my own personal experience in keeping them safe.

I understand that cats are a littler bit different and they tend to be quite independent.

I only have dogs.


[edit on 30-7-2008 by marg6043]

Animal Crultey and Abuse is a topic which is also close to my heart as I own, well, my Parents own a Jack Russel cross with a Staffidshire (spelt wrong) Bull Terrier. He is called Sam and is almost 13 years old.



I feel we treat him with a heck of a lot of respect and kindness. I take him for walks almost everyday through the local woods. We feed him special dietary food which he needs for his back legs, we also give him a slight portion of dog meat to help it go down. He has a full bowl of water at the side and he has full accses to the front room to chill out. We don't allow himj to go upstairs by himself incase he hurts himself. We let him sleep upstairs in the confort of his own beds! [He has a total of about 6 beds in our house]

However, this isn't a pet disscusion thread. This thread is basically from what i have gathered, about shining a greater watted bulb on Animal Cruelty and Pet Ownership.

Animal Cruelty

Well, I agree with what most people are saying here, Animal cruelty is wrong and in my opinion it is basically sickenning and morally wrong, no matter what.

Some of your methods of how to try and prevent it I feel could work i.e the fact that people who abuse animals could get a ban for life from owning pets.

However I feel that insurance is unnessecary, especially for animals like Dogs, Cats maybe. I do not own a cat so i do not know what they are like but my friend Billy owns 3 and I understand how they like to wonder the streets. Therefore cat insurance would work incase someone injured them whilst they was out walking. However for dogs I feel it is up to the owner. We do not have insurance for our Sam and well for nearly 13 years he has had no medical problems what so ever. Only now whilst he is having hip problems are the bills mounting up to be costly.

I at this moment do not understand everything about Electronic Tagging so i will comment in the future with my views.

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I have a friend, well if you can class him as a friend. He has a pet dog called Max. Now in the UK we have a animal charity called the RSPCA. Well I felt that the dog was being treated unfairly. I mean his mother sprayed his Inhaler in the dogs mouth just so it bared its teeth to look like it was smiling. That stuff can be leathal to dogs. I didn't enjoy the sight. They then got a set of tongs that you use in science labs and gripped the poor animals testicals with them, loose apparently. Well anyway I wasn't impressed, the fact that they had a dog that they...love, which they don't. They feed him dog food that is called Weebox, which is processed dog food which can be brought for a dirt cheap price. They make the poor dog eat it out of a old Ice cream tub and give it one bowl of water to last it all day, even if it is extremly hot. Well I didn't like it one bit so I rang the RSPCA about this dog and they came and took it away for a short period of time. They neutered it and bathed it.

When they got the dog back, it was less than a week before it was chained up outside and eating out of a tub again. His mum made me pay some of the money towards the neutering which i feel was unfair but I paid it to avoid confrontation.

That was almost a year ago. Now things have got even worse, They keep the dog locked up inside a cupboard all day with nothing more than a bowl of water for company. They turn the lights off and leave it there. When someone is in the house though they take it out and chain him up outside. Just recently it has been extremely hot here in the UK. When me and a few friends when to call for him the dog was chained up outside in direct sunlight, with no water and no food. We moved the bins to give him shade and gave him a drink of water. He appreciated it. Still the condittions worsen...

Animal insurance does not work. Here , a lot of them require you to pay up front then get reimbursed. I for one do not have money for a 1200 upfront surgery.

I have 4 cats and two dogs. They all get their shots, and vet care when they are ill.

My cat Majestic who I adopted at the pound as a baby,got sick at 11, and after paying $400 and the tests did not show what was wrong, they wanted another 300, and said most likely kidney and to fix if fixable would be at least another grand, I had to put him to sleep. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I tell you if I had the money I would have tried.

He was not eating, I was force feeding him his water and food which he hated. I could not watch him suffer any more.

Not to mention, insurance for all of my animals would run me aprox. 300 a month at least. I can not do that. All my animals are rescues, and have wonderful lives. They are treated as human. Should I have to give them up or pay insurance? No way. That is not an answer.

I think A different answer is to have people get a license to own a pet. Take a course, and a test at least.

Erm my vet wanted us to pay upfront, however all i had to do was present our insurance and they did the operation.



I would have had to put my cat down if i hadn't had insurance. I simply presented the form saying i had insurance and it was done. I stuck with the same vet and they now know i'm perfectly safe to trust.



I know how you feel, my cat lost the use of it's back legs, i was given a choice, amputation or sleep. Neither would have cost me more due to insurance but i thought keeping my cat alive, with both legs amputated and a trolley involved, that would be selfish. Poor thing didn't deserve that.



This idea woudlnt' be retroactive, however i must state the USa seems very different from the UK where i am. My cat costs me 7 pounds a month in insurance. It coves her for everything other than standard shots and flea treatments. Two cats only cost me 10 pounds a month.



That's a bad idea, a license isn't god becuase getting it would no doubt require insurance anyway, as that would show responsibility. america seems to have a very big problem with insurance. Your health insurance (for humans) is a clear indicator of this.

First of all, we need to stop addressing ourselves as pet "owners" and instead use the term pet "guardian."

Check out the Guardian Campaign pledge



www.guardiancampaign.com...

There's nothing to buy or do. It's just an animal awareness thing.

Changing out we view the world and animals is the first step. Government licensing and stuff doesn't help really.

[edit on 7/30/2008 by Ceara]

reply to post by Ceara

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I'm sorry but i own my cat, she's mine. If i'm a guardian and she wanders off and chooses somewhere else to live you can bet i'll be taking her back. Your believe is simply pedantic rubbish, my apologies for the directness of my comments but what you're saying oesn't address the real issue.

The real issue is making pet owners responsible, not just giving them a new label. I can take everything said in your post and just use the word owner instead of guardian. Calling thema guardian won't stop the sick freaks throwing them off of roofs.

Governmetn licensing hasn't really been trialed in the UK so how can you state it wn't help? Just because you think it won't?

[edit on 30-7-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Calling yourself a Guardian is only a social movement. It does not alter any laws of pet ownership at all. It is to encourage others to think of their animal companions as MORE than property.

And inviting the government into your personal life is never a good idea. That gives the government the impression people are unable to control things on their own, and then the government has to step into the parental role.

Yes, there needs to be change. But change shouldn't be brought about just because Big Brother says so. People need to WANT to change.

It's a choice.

Licensing doesn't prevent people from abusing animals. Anyone can get a license, or "permission" from the government. But a change in social awareness would be a catalyst for change.

Just take a while and think about all that before you reply with another emotionally-charged post.

Let's be clear, my responses are logical not emotional. i only quote my own experiences as a logical thing.



Now who's being emotional. Social movements here won't do a thing i promise you that, becuase the people abusing animals don't have that kind of care in them.



Quite wrong, this isn't about saying people are unable to contro things, it's that some people don't want to control them, that's quite different.



That old arguement and pet abuse has been going on a while and yet we've seen more abuse. So maybe a different tactic is needed.



You make the rather large mistake in that you think everyone is generally good. However the people who threw a cat off a tower block 7 or 8 times don't have a conscience and can't be brought around to thinking how you and i do.



Well i dont' really want licensing, i want enforced insurance. People who abuse animals wouldn't bother spending the money to insure them is my idea. There may be some but not many.



My responses are far from emotionally charged so dont' try using that against me. My ideas were based on pure and rather cold logic, in an attempt to stop abuse. Careful regulation would mean pets are pretty much bred to order, without waste.

[edit on 30-7-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

I've been thinking the same thing as you about animal ownership. I definitely think if someone abuses animals, they should never be able to have any animals again in their life. And if they get another animal again after that, then they should most definitely be put in jail.

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My family has a cat and a dog (although the dog is really my Pop's but we're looking after him because my Pop has my dog's mum and sister lol, and they're a handful). I know that if anyone even tried to do anything bad to them, they would get it and I would not let it rest and I would not have mercy. The pets that we've had, have always been apart of our family and I love them just as much as any other member of my family. We used to have two other cats, Angel (she was anything but, lol) and Sylvester (he looked like the cartoon cat Sylvester) but earlier this year, they both died within about a week of each other because they had anemia. I was heartbroken and still am. They were a HUGE part of my family, and they will always remain so.

There was a dog, Mitchell, that we had ever since I was born, and a few years ago he had to be let down, and it was so sad. I was going to stay there with my dad to be with Mitchell when he got put down, but once I looked into his eyes, I just couldn't do it. I had to go it was too sad. I don't know how anyone could not be sad to see an animal die. But I guess it's because the people who hurt animals are monsters and they don't really have feelings.

I honestly think, that whatever a person does to abuse an animal, should be done to them. That's just how I feel about it. It's the same way I feel about people who abuse babies or children. It is just so disgusting the way some people treat those who are helpless.

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I think putting chips in animals are a good idea. Because then you can know where they are and if something has happened to them, then you have a greater chance of knowing what.

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Thank goodness for the RSPCA in Australia (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), they do a marvelous job of looking after animals and dealing with people who abuse them. I know there's an RSPCA in the UK, but do they have anything like this in America?

A pretty common practice in America is 'declawing' which some people think is fine.

Read this:

Declawing

Declawing is pretty much animal cruelty, just to protect your furniture and yourself from scratches.
Cats have claws... don't want scratches, don't get a cat.

reply to post by MrMillztar

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Maybe it's time to create a diversion in front of your friend's house. While everybody is occupied with the situation, Max mysteriously "gets loose" and disappears from the yard, only to show up far away with a new, responsible owner.

They don't sound like the kind who would lift a finger to look for him.