I totally agree with everyone on this board. Margaret, you took the words right out of my mouth!! I don't know how people can be so disturbingly sick as to torture animals/any living thing for that matter. I feel the same way as Troy, I am truely ashamed to be human sometimes too...seeing how destructive and cruel humankind can be. Stuff like this just makes me so angry!!!

This is a little off subject but, in a letter to the Norwegian Minister of Environment supporting the protest against wolf slaughter, I wrote "... It's absolutely rediculous to take an endangered species such as the wolf (I understand there are 17 left in Norway?????) and exterminate it because of people's uneducated fears and misconceptions. In Norway, as well as everywhere else in the world, people are the problem. People have come to infest the face of the earth like locusts, pushing any other species out (or killing it off to the point of extinction) and consuming every natural resource. What will happen in the future when the human race has built on every last scrap of land? Where will our oxygen come from? What will happen when our grand children's grand children only learn about animal species through text books because the human race has wiped them out? It would be a sad sad thing for that to happen. After all, who was here first? People can learn a lot from animals. Animals, such as wolves, take only what they need to survive in nature. Humans take more than they need and then some. Before humans infested the face of the earth, resources were conserved, and if it were up to the animals, there would be more resources left today..."
I was a little angry when I wrote this, but it got the point across. It's so sad that people can be so cruel, and I really think that humankind can learn a lot from observing the animals.

I am comforted, however, knowing there are a lot of people out there who do care. People on this board, for example, people involved in any kind of animal rescue/rehabilitation, people with a strong love of animals and preservation, and anyone who goes out of their way to help an animal in need.

Genia, many hugs to your daughter for trying to help that poor kitten. I do believe that a lot of it(behavior) does come from how you're brought up and what you see. I did a research paper on serial killers in college, and it was a scary discovery for me to find out that people who torture animals when they're young is a huge HUGE warning sign. The serial killers that I mentioned in my paper (Bundy, Hill Side Strangler, Gacy, Son of Sam, Berkowitz...and some others), ALL had a history of animal torture as kids. Scary correlation.

Gio, I think it's a really great idea for some international complaints! I've had a few of my own, like the one to Norway! I think it would be great if we could get animal cruelty to be considered a greater crime than it is considered right now (really, 1000 fine and those guys are released??) and to get the word out to help STOP animal cruelty!!!!

I think I'll get off my soapbox now. This is just something that hits a nerve. Hope I didn't offend anyone! I'll end my post with this thought...

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be your faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion..."
-Unknown