A Beagle Called It.

There's a disclaimer that goes with the following post and it's this. You have every right to disagree with the way my psyche functions, but it's just how it is. Like my opinion on capital punishment this is more of an unwavering personality trait.

A few weeks ago Rob and I in passing agreed that animal abuse makes us feel worse for the animal than perhaps abuse on another human being would. Now I can't speak for him, but to me I think that perhaps the animal just seems more innocent. I mean yes, i feel bad for rape victims, i feel bad for the family members of murder victims, I also feel bad for decent parents that ended up raising murderers. However, even if a victim was defenseless maybe I still just feel like they're still a less innocent being to begin with. (mind you I've just considered this all in the last five minutes)... I'll take a dog as my example because well, that my biggest familiar, I know canines like I know the back of my hand. And i've walked right up to an agressive dog and managed to a)calm them down b)do so without getting a bite. I can't say that what happened in that scenario is true in all cases, i'm just saying it's not far-fetched. Now a domestic puppy is not ever born inherently evil. Aggression is not something an animal is born with, it's something certain breeds can be more easily prone to, but it's not something that's automatic. When a domestic animal aquires such behaviors it's usually got to do with one of the following reasons:
1)lack of proper training or upbringing (ESPECIALLY in a breed that has aggressive tendancies (e.g. Stanfordshire Bull Terrier aka Pitbull)
2)lack of attention or neglect
3)a developed protective nature (e.g. defending something they care for a "pack member" if you will)
4)they've been trained to do so
5)they've been abused
6)they're hungry
7)they're in pain (esp. old dogs are prone to this, in my dog personally it seems he gets snippier when anyone he doesn't see frequently or someone who mostly isn't me approaches him simply because he's unsure [anxious: see below] about whether they will know how to touch him, or as it were not pet him or scratch him somewhere that would increase the pain he's already enduring.)
8)you've pissed them off or scared them. Fear and anger are 100% definately in the canine emotion spectrum. Anxiety is a big aggression turn on in most dogs I've come across.

Now I understand that's a lot of factors. But honestly, many many dogs go through life without most of those things being triggered with any frequency. And like i said, they don't do it on their own, it's build into them by human action. Humans on the other hand after X-number of years on this planet commit numerous unnessessary and unprompted actions that result in the endangerment and hurt of others. Everyone has done it, everyone has commited some sort of sin or crime against the law or against humanity. We've all done wrong. I'm not saying that we deserve the bad things that happen to some people. I'm just saying we're perhaps more worthy of it than an animal who never so much as growled.

Now why am I raving on about this at 7 AM on a friday in a blog. Well, I was playing Final Fantasy XI and in this game I have a special ability that i can only use every 2 hours, I just used it so I needed to kill time til i could use it again for another special type of battle. So I picked up American Psycho which i've recently gotten back on track reading and plan to finish reading in the near future. In the current chapter I had just completed before writing this.... there is a very very graphically described scene in which a gay man is walking his dog outside Central Park, after the gay man makes a flirtatious comment about how good Patrick (main character) looks, Patrick proceeds to maul the man's Shar-pei to near death and then let it go to die slowly and agonizingly. He then proceeds to stab the man to death as well.

There are many scenes like this in the book. This is the second one that involved a dog. The scenes involving the brutal deaths of humans will make me slightly queezy or give me a dry awful taste in my mouth... however the brutal death of the two dogs has caused me to actually stop reading and regroup because it's just gives me the chills and makes me want to cry all at once.

Now on the same strand, currently in my back pack is a book entitled A Child Called It, which I am sure while many of the people who read this blog may not have read it, they've most likely heard of it. If not the book is part one of a three part autobiographical series (The Lost Boy, & A Man Named Dave) about a man named David who grew up in a severe child abuse situation. I have only started the book and read a little here and there on occasion. But I do have a basis of how awful and graphic this book can be. It bothers me, disturbs me, and makes my heart go out to this man's life (although now I will point out that he's grown to be a stable and functional member of society with a lot of happiness later in his life to look back upon and hey... he's a millionaire because of it... not saying that he'd rather be poor and have had a happy childhood... but it's a point to be made). Anyway.....

So basically that's why anybody who's been reading this far has endured my ramble on the abuse of animals vs. the abuse and victimizations of humans... and how i'm personally and emotionally affected by each. I guess also I can be personally internally affected by reading or hearing about animal victimization situations than i can about human situations. I can put myself more into the animal and in some cases their loving owner's shoes than I can into the shoes of a rape or mugging victim. Maybe... i'm not so sure about that last part, consider it a very passing final thought on the matter that I'd have to contemplate more to consider it's validity.