Social Media And Animal Shelters

Recently my friend and I got on the topic of how media shows awareness for abused and neglected animals. We talked about how they usually show the animals in their most valuable state, instead of when they are happy and in a loving environment. One of the commercials that I’ve seen the most is the one that has Sarah McLachlan’s “In the arms of an angel” playing and it shows sad looking animals, well I haven’t watched the whole thing because the second it comes on I change the channel… but other than making people feel bad for not adopting from shelters (highly recommended by the way) social media is a great way to spread awareness for these animals. I know that when I see stuff about abused animals on twitter or other media platforms it’s really upsetting because once again they don’t show how the animal healed and how happy its new owners make them. I’m not at all saying to hide that side of the animals life I’m just saying that maybe they should show “the healing power of love” and not only “humans are disgusting creatures and don’t deserve the unconditional love from pets”.

I personally think that shelters should have more events that people seeking a pet can attend and not only see the animals how they are now but have the opportunity to read a little “back story”. A lot of shelters have websites where you can see a picture of the pet and read a description of the pet, that’s how I ended up getting my cat.

My cat Savannah

Story time: my mom always grew up having a cat, so I thought since we only had big dogs I could get her a cat to cuddle with for her birthday (which is in November). After months of trying to convince my dad to let me adopt one I knew I would need more time, so I figured by mother’s day I’d have him convinced. Finally I got him to go to the humane society with me and “look” at the cats, he didn’t know that I had been doing research and already had a cat in mind…they asked us to fill out a page to “pair us up” with a cat and of course my dad was being impatient because he had a meeting to go to right after “looking” at the cats. Long story short he ended up being late to his meeting because he had to sign adoption papers :)

Until next time, bye.
 

Types of Abuse (part 2)

Hey again! This post will be continuing last week’s post. Quick recap in case you forgot, last week I talked about the most common types of abuse on animals which included physical and testing. This post will be about certain actions against animals that are often not seen as abuse but I will try to explain in the best way possible why I think they are considered abuse.

The first would be neglect. To me this is abuse because owners leave their animals either tied up for long periods of time or they leave them behind. I’ll use a dog as an example if a puppy is raised being fed and cared for by a human it’s whole life then is all of the sudden left behind when the owners move away, the dog won’t know how to get food other than from people like it always has. When the dogs are left to fend for themselves they will most likely end up starving and afraid of human because of the neglect.

Being tied up for long periods of time outside whether they’re tied up in the summer or winter they have a permanent “coat” on so in the summer they can over heat and get dehydrated or in the winter they don’t have the proper protection against the weather but not only that but they’re paws can start to crack, causing severe pain and possibly infection.  Honestly I will never understand why anyone would do such a thing to an animal that doesn’t know anything more than simply loving unconditionally, because if I let one of my dogs outside then go do something else and I hear them at the door I drop what I’m doing even if they just got to the door.  

The second would be poaching, and I’m not talking about hunting to survive I’m talking about killing and selling only certain parts of the animal while wasting the rest. Elephants are the most commonly talked about in the sense of being poached to near extinction. In case you haven’t heard much about it elephants are poached for their ivory tusks, the tusks have very high value to humans but are a defense mechanism to elephants. What do I think? I really hope people stop killing such beautiful animals just because they make good money off of the hunt.

I could go on and on about how much I hate what some people do to animals but I’m not sure that it would be interesting enough to read about. I might talk more about poaching in a different post but for now I’ll try to post something a little less upsetting. I hope you enjoyed this post. Have a good night or good day whenever you’re seeing this. Bye!

Info from: 
-Previous research
-Family 
-Friends

Types of Abuse (part 1)

I’m not quite sure how to start this post to be completely honest…I know I want to write out a detailed list in order of most commonly talked about types of animal abuse and how I would explain it to someone who has no idea of what they might be.

Please remember everyone has different opinions and I am in no way, shape or form saying my opinions are the only ones and especially not trying to offend anyone else’s opinions.

The first and most heard of abuse would be physical abuse, there are many different way this can occur when someone intentionally causes physical pain to an animal whether it’s done with an object or not. Of course all abuse is painful to the animals but I think this can be one of the hardest types to talk about because it can cause permanent damage or worse…

The second most talked about would probably be testing done on animals; this is a heavily debatable topic. It seems to me that the amount of people that agree this process is around but not quite as high as the amount of people who disagree completely. This is a horrible type of abuse; way too many animals have gone blind, had infections and all sorts of illnesses that shouldn’t have happened. Cosmetics, medications and procedures are all done on innocent animals that spend their lives in cages, scared and alone. On the plus side more and more companies are against these kinds of tests and are releasing the animals to sanctuaries.

 I’ve always dreamt of being a vet and one day in the car my mom was telling me how one of her friend’s children applied to veterinary school, the school accepted the application and requested an interview. During the interview they asked “Do you agree with testing on animals? ” thinking “no I do not” would be the right answer and a truthful one on her part that’s what she answered, she was later informed that she did not pass the interview.

I just realized that my post is getting pretty long and I don’t want to bore you so I will continue this subject in my next post. I hope you liked this and will be back for the rest of the post. Thank you for reading and I’ll talk to you next time!

Info from: 
-Previous projects/research 
-My mom
-Friends

Introduction

Hi I’m Natalie Bietola and I chose to write my blog about the ripple effect that animal abuse has society. My posts won’t be limited to the rescue process, organizations that help and the laws put in place to protect the animals but will also include examples of different types of abuse, without being too graphic.

Laws are put in place to protect animals so when people don’t follow those laws it makes it hard for jury to give them fair consequences because the severity isn’t always the same and the animals sometimes don’t get justice, I’ll go into more detail about that in another post. The laws also fluctuate in the sense of how many there are and how strict the government is on enforcing those laws.

There are so many types of animal abuse that some people don’t even see them as abuse, whether it be part of their culture, upbringing or they are so used to it being done its “normal” to them. I plan on talking about different types of abuse but without all the graphic detail that can sometimes make people uncomfortable.

The effects of abuse vary depending on the severity of the abuse and of course it’s not only physical but mentally as well. I will explore the effects it has on the animals and how it affects their view on humans, I will also link stories of animals that are “on the road to recovery”.

Throughout my blog I will also share my personal opinions, stories and experiences with pets that were formerly abused. I did not choose this subject to simply share sad stories, I chose this subject to help you understand that just because your past may be a little broken it does not mean that you’re not worthy of happiness and love. After all we better learn to get along because we’ll be sharing this earth for a long time…