According to studies I’ve read, something like 5-24% of girls and 10-42% of boys abuse animals at some point in their young life.
Do you think animal abuse in childhood means we’re dealing with bad seeds that will grow up to be a threat to society, or is it a relatively common “rite of passage” that children grow out of? How severely do you think children and teens who abuse animals should be punished?
Are children who abuse animals purposely being mean, or are they acting more or less instinctually?
When I worked for a dog rescue organization, I got a bit obsessed with trying to figure out what made people sadistic. I couldn’t find much written on the topic, but did find one book about it. (I’ll have to search back through my Amazon purchase history if anyone wants the title.)
The book addressed this issue: is it true that psychopaths/murderers always start out by practicing on animals? So then an apparent correlary: do all children who abuse animals turn into psychopaths?
Their analysis showed that there’s not a cause and effect here. A majority of young children abuse animals as part of experimenting with the world, to see what happens when they do X. They also engage in experiments to prove out myths they’ve heard, like “do cats really have nine lives”? Most children grow out of this phase and then also are horrified to remember back at what they’ve done.
The “bad seeds” as the OP puts it, are the kids who don’t grow out of that experimental phase, or discover that they enjoy feeling powerful or pleasure when they do mean things. From what I’ve read about psychology those issues are likely already in the kid’s head to begin with and the acts are just “acting out” on what’s in their head.
Absolutely, kids and teens (AND ADULTS) who abuse animals should be punished severely. I’m not saying that you should go to jail for stepping on an ant, some common sense applies here. But society should never let Michael Vick situations develop.
Was it Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat? Don’t remember the author, but it touched on this subject somewhat. Some of the descriptions about kids abusing animals were really hard to read. There was this one anecdote about a group of kids using a puppy as a volleyball over a fence. The puppy died the next day.
Apparently, it was a woman who related the memory, and no, she’s not a psychopath. It was just she and a group of her friends playing. She did feel remorse looking back on it as an adult.
I would express righteous outrage, but I can remember chasing my cats with the vacuum cleaner, and putting socks over their heads to watch them walk backward. Not as lethal, but still…
I don’t know about the whole “bad seed” thing, but, baring any deviations such as pent up anger, fear, etc. and having normal contact with animals, children are naturally very loving to animals. In my work, I’ve noticed parallels to how young children treat animals (or at least intend to treat them with their limited motor control) and children younger than themselves.
No, it was a book about animal cruelty specifically and covered things like why people do it, addressed the popular assumption that animal abusers turn into psychopaths and talked about the delicate balance that rescue organizations have to achieve to publish abuse cases for fundraising purposes. You can only post photos of abused animals if they’re graphic, but not too graphic. (If you publish no photo or one that shows a healthy, cute puppy, nobody will donate. But if you publish something that turns people’s stomachs they disengage completely. When you find that balance you get a lot of donations and people continue to engage with your organization.)
I did also read the book you mention and it was a good one.
Well, there is annoyance and there is abuse. I’m pretty sure my childhood cat was quite annoyed when I dressed her in doll clothes, or performed experiments to see how she could always land on her feet no matter how close to the ground she was when dropped. (I definitely would discourage this in a kid, but I don’t really think it will hurt a cat much to be dropped from two inches above the ground, even if she didn’t land on her feet, and anyway, she did.)
But, gee, I don’t think there was ever a time in my life when I would have thought it was okay to play volleyball with a puppy.
Also, not all animals are created equal. Personally, I used to positively massacre ants as a kid, spending hours poking at anthills and making them do tricks, but I never once even touched a vertebrate. Would I be counted as a child animal abuser?
Michael Vick? There is a difference, I think, between the bloodlust evident in things like, chicken fights, dogfighting, bullfighting, boxing, etc. and the sadism associated with sticking an M-80 up a cats ass and lighting the fuse. And then doing it again after you see gruesome the result because you thought it was so awesome the first time around. Or vivisecting a squirrel while it is still alive to see how much it can take before it dies or just to watch its eyes roll to the back of its head.
I don’t see a difference between those, but I accept that you do. However, are you aware of the methods they use for dog fighting (just to pick one)? Specifically the practice of using “bait” dogs or cats to work the fighting dog up to a bloodlust? How is tossing a cat into a dog pit less worse than shoving the M-80 up it’s butt?
The end result is no better but I think there may be a difference in the sadism associated with sticking an M-80 up a cat’s butt and using a cat to test the “killer instinct” of a dog before you invest in training them for dogfighting.
Agreed. In the former case you’re deriving pleasure from harming an animal and that is your sole motivation. In the latter you are hoping to develop a winning dog for financial gain. You’re something of a monster (in my opinion) in either case, but greed is a slightly more “normal” motive than a pure sadistic thrill. Because maybe the dog-fighter will stop murdering cats if a better financial opportunity arises. Cat butt exploder isn’t going to be happy if he’s not exploding cat butts.
Let’s use a more dramatic example… You subject mice to disfiguring tests to determine the viability of an anti-cancer drug. Or you cut them open while alive for sexual gratification. Many will say that animal testing is unethical but others will say it’s the cost to find a cure. But nearly anyone would say that the guy getting his rocks off through vermin vivisection needs some kind of help.