ANimal cruelty is still happening around our area right under our noses

By Hanna D.

Schools are opening up. People are going to work since being stuck inside. More and more people are leaving their pets at the doorstep of animal shelters or leaving them out on the streets.

What people don’t know is that not all animals will get out of that shelter they are dropped off at. You are signing them up for a game of life and death. According to Janice Frazier,a board from the Pet awareness and welfare Society for San Jose animal care center. , “It is not always granted a home.”

While an animal's life should be cherished and not be used just for human’s own entertainment, just throwing them away, just because they got “tired” of them is not very humain.

Another huge problem is that many people just leave their pets up to the shelter’s hands, not knowing how much danger they are putting them in.

Covid left a lot of people bored in their houses, so many decided to adopt a pet and spice up their lives.

The combination of high adoption rates and vet clinic shutdowns due to Covid has resulted in many unvaccinated pets, says Janice Frazier. Without getting your animal vaccinated, the pet could get sick easier, especially during covid time. There are some people who would drop their pet off just because it got sick and they don’t want to deal with it.

Not only that, but cats have been thrown out of homes, sometimes into the shelter and sometimes not in the shelter.

According to an article from the Washington post, written by Terrence McCoy, it states that so many people dropped off their cats in this deserted island, shelters around that area are not sure how to save them all. Since living on that island, the cats have gone feral and started attacking outsiders. Additionally, their living space is all dirty and muddy, full of spider webs. Not an ideal place for cats to be living in.

Janice Frazier also stated, “Often people feed cats and they come and ask if they could stop feeding them since they aren’t able to feed them anymore. Sometimes I say it's ok if they are living near any places like jack-in-the-box or KFC or Mcdonalds since they have another way for food by going into the trash. But if it is an area around the mountains or forest, I tend to say to keep feeding them since there is not much food source...they can’t just live off of eating mice.”

When people feed cats where there is no other food source, the cats get used to getting food from them, so when they suddenly stop feeding them, they have a hard time surviving.

Source: Janice Frazier from the Pet awareness and welfare Society for San Jose animal care center

The cats are not the only problem around this area. Dogs are also a big problem that needs to be addressed.

According to Janice Frazier, many more people are doing cat rescue than dog rescue. “The thing with dogs is they have more baggage. If you're going to take on doing dog rescue, it's a big deal right. It's a big deal to do cats too, but it's a big deal to do with dogs.” they said.

It is a lot harder taking care of dogs, so many people just leave them off, thinking someone else would save them instead of taking action.

Not only that, dogs are being left or dropped off in front of animal shelters as people work. During the covid time, according to the 13thst cats rescue group, “people who have grown up with the absence of animals in their lives are anxious about adopting one.”

Many people were lonely when just staying in one place, so they decided to get a pet to end their loneliness. Now, times have changed, and so do their pets’ lives.

Since many people stayed home, their pets are used to them staying home and giving all their attention to them. However, now that people are starting to work in person, they have attachment issues, according to Janice Frazier.

This happens mainly to dogs since many people know that most dogs are kind and loving and need more attention than cats. Now that they don’t “need” them anymore, people just throw them away to a shelter or street where they might not even survive.

People don’t like if their pets have issues so it is hard for shelters to help the animals find a home. If an animal doesn’t find a home by then, the shelter would have no choice but to put them down(kill). That’s why it is so important to understand what you are doing when you drop off a pet at a shelter.

There is even a big problem with the cats, since people don’t know that cats could get pregnant easily, so their cats get pregnant. “Some people just turn them in because they are pregnant, cats can get in heat very quickly and they howl when they are pregnant, and when dogs are in heat, they don’t howl,” said Janice Frazier.

Many people don’t want to deal with a loud and pregnant animal so they decide to drop them to a shelter or just throw them out.

Though, I have been talking a lot about animal pets that people usually have in their homes, not only that, but other animals.

According to an article from the Washington post titled, “Authorities seize 68 big cats from “tiger king” couple who allegedly abused animals threated federal officials,” written by Timothy Bella, the authorities recovered 68 big cats which included tigers, lions, and many more.

This couple used these abused animals to make money for themselves and the owners have failed to provide timely care and nutritions to these big cats.

Many of the big cats were injured since the animals refused to fight back when the owner wanted it too.

With all of this, the owners didn’t even have a license to own big cats so they were accused of inhumane treatment and ongoing violations of the Endangered species act.

To top it all off, according to both the 13thst cats rescue group and Janice Frazier from the Pet awareness and welfare Society for San Jose animal care center, if you are cruel to animals then you are just not respectful to life in general so with the work they are doing, they are trying their hardest to make a positive community.

Though most people don’t know, even the little things can affect the community as a whole, not just humans, but animals as well. If the animals get affected so do humans and vice versa. It is very important to take care of all animals because humans aren’t the only ones living in this world.