12,364. 12,364 is the total number of cases from the year 2000 to present day. Which to me is 12,364 cases to many. Animals are a lot like people; they have feeling and make mistakes. Just because the animal can’t tell you stop doesn’t mean that they don’t care and makes hurting the animal. In Illinois there has been 22 cases in 2009 alone. 3.06% of all cruelty cases in the U.S. during the year 2009. There are cases from beatings and burnings to killing, in a case in Northglenn a man was arrested for making sure his dog’s bark wasn’t aggressive. Michael Dennis Reust, 38, made sure his dog didn’t bark by Duct taping his dog’s mouth shut. Reust said Jay, his dog, wouldn’t stop barking so he Duct taped his snout closed. Reust was arrested on Monday after a neighbor saw a yellow dog with its muzzle Duct taped closed and called police. Officers then took Reust jail. Jay was released from a veterinary hospital and is now living at Adam’s County Animal Shelter, after Reust surrendered the ownership of Jay to the shelter. This is one of the milder cases in the U.S.; even if they’re mild all cruelty cases should be stopped. The most common type of animal cruelty is for dogs that are non –Pitbull dogs, with 6,667 cases. The second most abused animals are cats with 2,699 cases. Pitbulls are so commonly abused that they have their own bar on the graph of most abused animal types with 1,770 cases making Pitbulls the third most animal abused. Animal abuse in the United States has been a problem for along time and I think its time we change that.

First off think of all the mental and physical abuse the animals have had to go through just because a malicious human decide to take their anger of problem out on an animal who might have not known better. Even worse think of the animals that have died from abuse like, a kitten from Mesa, Arizona, who’s owner threw the kitten at a python to try and get it killed. After that failing, the owner then proceeded to drop kick the kitten across the backyard killing it. Think of animal abuse as child abuse just for a minute, almost everyone has seen a movie or experienced knowing a child who has gone through child abuse, therefore you would know that they have been permanently scared for life. The same goes for animals, except that people have therapist and other things to help them get through it all, since animals lack those types of things they have to learn to cope with it by themselves. Making neglect harder on animals then people.

Second, think, what kind of person you would have to be to mistreat animals? By diminishing animal abuse the number of vile people in the world would also decrease making the world better. To me an ordinary person would choose a more sensible solution to a problem with an animal then to ruin the animal’s life. But since nobody’s perfect we have to team up to find a way to stop this torturous treatment. Animals can’t speak for them selves so we have to be the voices of the animals and help them end this horrible thing.