Since I was in high school last year, I want to give a bit of insight on that end.

Last year when I was in high school, I was in some special ed classes due to having aspergers. I was in 2 normal classes, 2 special ed classes, and four classes were volunteering at the humane society for school credits.

I will say that out of 150 total students that I came in contact with last year, I at least heard 30 them say they hated animals or I heard them say something about killing animals. In my classes they repeated stories of how they have killed animals in the past, and how they have had animals that have died. I recall one person laughing about an instance of a cat and a drier. Funny? I fail to see the humor in it.

I found out that most of the stories were true. I found out that the person who beat me up in high school several times and the same person who tried to stab me in stowell school was behind a kitten murder. It is sad to think about – but then it again it shows that human and animal cruelty is linked.

In fact, one of the students also kicked my cat in one instance, and I had to bring him to the vet! These people sicken me. Out of all the people that I found out were animal abusers in my school, 90% of them are men. I might write an article on this sometime.

Good article :).

Our local news just reported a teenage girl who’d broken up with her boyfriend a couple months ago and he didn’t take it well. He wanted to meet up with her to ‘talk’ about it. The girl (16 or 17) even told her parents/friends/co-workers that he sounded ‘funny’ but she was meeting him anyway.

He ended up strangling her, cutting her throat and tossing her body into some marshy land not far from their respective homes.

Now, I ask you, if a man/woman were to say to you that an ex sounded ‘funny’ wouldn’t that have bells clanging through your head? Wouldn’t you at least try to stop that person from meeting them? So sad…

I had to show receipt with the time stamped showing I reallly was out paying bills. If I worked over I had to show something with the time stamped on it showing I really was at work. And it all happens slowly. Very well mannered in the beginning. There’s a candlelight vigil every year for women who just refused to believe would go as far as murder.

I’m glad Ann brought that up that it really is all about control with abusers. It may masquerade as loving behavior, but it’s not. The woman may think, “He really cares about me, that’s why he gets so jealous and wants to know what I’m doing at all times.” That’s not loving behavior. When you really have something there is trust. When you really have a loving relationship he lets you be who you are. He doesn’t separate you from those who love you. He doesn’t threaten the things you care about most. When I was dating an abusive guy he threatened to trash my car because I really liked that car. Also, my car allowed me to work my second job which was in the suburbs. Without being able to get to that job I would no longer have been economically independent. He wanted to make me dependent on him. Thank God he gave up after a little while and found someone else to stalk and harass. I had to park my car seven blocks from my house on a dead end street to hide it so that he wouldn’t destroy it. Thank goodness I had no pets or any family around here that he knew about. He would have went after anything and anyone if it would have hurt me and made me dependent on him. He claimed this was because he “loved me so much.” Yeah, right.

Hi,

I too have been there, done that. Thankfully I did not have pets or children involved so I could get away without as much trouble. I am also a nursing student and in one of my classes we had a speaker from the local abused partner shelter. She mentioned some warning signs that I had not really thought of before. She said men who turn out to be abusive will often be the nicest, most complimentary guy you ever met at first. They will tell you how beautiful you are, that they can’t live without you, they want to be with you all the time, they love the way you wear your hair, etc. This then turns into–I can’t live without you, so you can’t leave me or see any of your friends or family, I want to be with you all the time except when I want to go out, but you aren’t allowed to go out without me, I love it when you wear your hair that way, so if you change it, I will hit you. And on and on until it gets worse. So girls, beware if your guy seems like he is a little too nice all the time. It is probably a show to get you into his clutches and once you are there, Heaven help you.

I, too, suffered at the hands of abusers – both in childhood growing up as well as an adult. Childhood abuse dealt with family members who were mentally ill, so that was a different scenario. I left home at 14, went straight to the courthouse to talk to a judge and told him that if he didn’t immediately put me into foster until the family got help, I would just run away again and he would be responsible for my ultimate death from the streets. Could he live with that on his conscience? The judge put me in foster until the requisite help was obtained, then I returned home.

As an adult, I became the abuser’s full guardian and got the needed help for that person and we shared special times afterward until their death. Thankfully, the pets were never harmed.

One boyfriend was an abuser, but he got his comeuppance when my dad tossed him down a flight of stairs (boyfriend didn’t know Dad was home when he charged into my room to knock me around). After Dad passed, the same boyfriend tried to ingratiate himself but was tossed in jail when he stole our family car and sold it. (Local police didn’t like him and roughed him a bit.) The grapevine told me much later, he married someone else shortly thereafter and promptly abused her physically. Never found out the end result.

Massachusetts passed a law recently allowing pets to be included in restraining orders. Some women’s shelters allow pets to go with the family and the shelter’s address is kept confidential.

Animal abusers, particularly children, are on their way to becoming human abusers and eventually serial killers, human and animal alike. I agree with Elisa on her comment about Rescue Ink…it wouldn’t take long for the abuser to get a taste of their own medicine.

I’m glad that our society is finally realizing that people who abuse animals will also abuse people. In Jacksonville, there’s a 12-year-old boy about to be tried as an adult for killing his 5-year-old brother. The media have been all stirred up about whether it’s proper to try this “child” as an adult when he had a horrible upbringing and witnessed his own father’s violent death. It was only in a recent article about it that they mentioned that this kid had also killed a kitten a few years ago.

In another recent news story, a mother was arrested for leading her two children in beating two kittens in a park; one died on the scene, and the other was severely injured. How damaged are those children, when their own mother teaches them to abuse innocent animals?! Let’s hope they get the counseling they’ll need to avoid becoming abusers themselves.

The outreach work done by shelter support and rescue groups is a wonderful thing, to teach children proper respect for, care and handling of pets when they may not have received that training at home. Only in ways like this will the cycle of abuse be broken for future generations.

I was raised in a household where sexual, physical and emotonal abuse was the norm. I watched him abuse our pets. Back then, I knew nothing of shelters, thinking only the streets would be my haven. But I didn’t runaway, I couldn’t take my animals with me, and surely wouldn’t leave them even more defenseless. So I stayed, and barely survived. I’m so glad society is finally seeing humans aren’t the only victims.
It taught me to be FEARLESS, and has given me a chance to save animals from situations now.

This is also another reason cats need their claws. For Gods sake, leave them something to defend themselves with.

It is my guess that one of the reasons a lot of women can’t adopt a pet is they’re afraid their abuser will kill it. I gave away a dog I’d had for 7 years to save it’s life because I knew it would be next.

Yes,I suffered at the hands of an abuser, but I consider it on the job training for anything life decided to throw at me. I survived and it left me virtually unafraid of anyone. I’ve been in some dangerous situations at work and pulled up my past experiences to calm someone down.

There a quite a lot of crazy and dangerous men out there, no matter which country you are in.

I think some of these men leave horrible comments on my YouTube channel.

They have a mass of anger inside them that comes out when drunk for example but they don’t have to be drunk to show their anger and uncoth behavior. Then the violence starts.