The Cost of Cruelty

We will someday pay a high price for the cruelty we perpetuate on animals with whom we share the planet. Trust me, I'm about as far from a "tree hugger" type of person as can be found. I don't think animals have the same rights as people, and if me not having any companion animals could feed all the starving children in..... pick a country, I'd not have any. No one who spouts that view can generally tell me HOW my getting rid of my dogs would feed starving children, even in the sad countries where dog is consumed. But, though quieter than at other times, that view still holds.

However, more than those people are the ones who actively, in our time, cause pain, anguish, heartbreak, and despair (and that’s just a start of the list) on real live, breathing, corporeal, organic creatures, many of whom have soul enough to bond with each other, other types of animals, and, frequently to their detriment, humans. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, though I’d like to be (and my cardiologist—himself a heart attack survivor—recommends that lifestyle). But food does not mean malice or brutality.

It just doesn’t.

Michael Vick’s name will forever be aligned with dog fighting. I read the book about those dogs, about the investigation and arrest of the men who ran that hellhole. As horrific as it was, they did get many of the dogs out—not the ones who died for not being good enough killing machines, you understand—but many. Perhaps the most well-known “animal rights” group in the country advocated euthanizing all the rescued dogs. Thank you, God, other rescue folks came to the, well, rescue, took as many of the dogs as allowed, even when a few were sentenced to life at a wonderful rescue facility in the desert in Utah, and taught the dogs that not all people hurt you. Some of those dogs morphed into therapy dogs; some into wonderful family dogs.

But, dog fighting goes on. Why? I do not understand wanting to see beautiful animals tear each other apart….. of course, a big part is money. “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.” Not much to dispute there.

It is for that reason 30,000-40,000 beautiful thoroughbred horses are born a year—to get one Justify or American Pharoah, winner of triple crowns. And, oh, yes, I watch those incredible races each year. But the others…… oh, there are successful horses that race. And there now are people who work to rescue the horses who turn out not to run fast enough. But the whole industry had a big wakeup call when, some time ago now, a Kentucky Derby winner wound up in Japan at a factory to be used for food.

The Bureau of Land Management tries to manage the wild horse population in the west; so they round them up with helicopters, adopt out to some folks who know what they are getting—but to others who have no idea what to do with a wild animal, beautiful, a horse, but NOT a domestic horse, and shove them into pens to live a half life. Or, as one Colorado man so deftly managed to do, sell them inexpensively to “adopters” who might then get them to Mexico or Canada and the meat factory.

The stories from the bullfights in Spain…… a picture came around facebook of a bull who, raised by a man, as he was in the arena being tormented, bleeding, in pain, saw the man who raised him in the stands, and ran to him. He raised his head to this man—this man who raised a young bull to this beautiful animal being brutally killed before him. The man kissed the bull on the nose the bull offered to him, seeking help, smiling, then turned away. As he turned, how could a part of that man’s soul not shrivel?

 

That picture haunts me.

How many animals live a lifetime with a family or working a farm to wind up at a shelter or sold to slaughter when they are “too old?” There are times when animals must be surrendered; those times should be times of mourning, and not convenience.

Puppy mills, cock fighting, backyard breeding, vivisection in scientific labs, cosmetic companies using animals as testing for profit…….the list of creative ways we find to inflict pain on unsuspecting and helpless animals is endless.

And, because I do not think animals have the rights of humans, how much higher is our responsibility to treat them well? Jesus said, when telling the disciples how a loving God cares for them, that not even a sparrow could fall without God knowing. Yes, He emphasized how important we are to God. But, do not miss—He keeps track of sparrows. And, if sparrows, why on earth think any other animal unimportant to Him?

That casual cruelty practiced on animals….. of course it also falls on children, on the elderly, on the weaker by the stronger. Bullies, sadly, abound.

It is not unnoticed.

Like all injustice in the world, the struggle against unkindness is one small scuffle at a time. How odd, using words of conflict when discussing stopping unkindness. There are ways to make small differences, and the small differences grow. It is in the growing of acts of compassion that our own spirits can enlarge.

Today, this day, I will try myself to be kind—not a doormat (big difference)—but kind to not only the animals I meet, but the people in my path; I will make that decision, and even try to follow through. And I will find ways to help the bigger issues—there are groups who know steps to take and who always need help.

And as I take practical steps, I say a prayer for us all on this planet—all creatures great and small, human and animal together.