Personally, I hope there is a special place in hell for people who abuse animals. In the meantime, I applaud the judge who sentenced a guy who'd abandoned a dog in a dump to spend a week of nights in the dump or pay a spectacular fine. After a single night, the guy paid the fine. I think he should've stayed in the dump with the other vermin.
I cannot imagine life without animals. My family has been blessed with many, many animals: almost twenty cats and maybe ten dogs, many of them strays. I have gotten cats from places like JC Penneys (someone dumped a kitten in housewares, if you can imagine that), from beneath the front porch of a Taco John's restaurant, and outside a dance studio. We've rescued cats from neighbors who didn't care about them after they got older, less cute, or pregnant. We accepted a pair of kittens from a friend who has taken in even more strays than we have over the years and got one of the world's greatest dogs when she just wandered up the alley one day and no one responded to found ads.
My daughter spent a day job shadowing at a veterinary clinic on Thursday and came home more determined than ever to become a vet. When she was about eight or nine, she called the sheriff on a drunk who she saw beating a shetland pony, and gave a very detailed and fiery report to the deputy who turned up at the door. She told the deputy that she didn't go beat the guy up herself because she thought someone his own size could do a more thorough job of it.
