Reflection

Reflection

The topic for my project was Animal Cruelty. I chose this topic because I feel that people don’t realize how serious this issue really is. Thousands of animals are abused and killed every day but have we never think that we could do something to save an innocent animals life. Just by simply setting a good example to other pet owners we could help to stop animal cruelty. Animal cruelty is not something we have to see around us for the rest of our lives, we can put a stop to people causing harm onto animals for no reason at all. We don’t have to be the most famous person in the world or the richest person in the world; all we have to do is love the animals in this world.

My favorite part about this project is knowing that I am standing up to animal cruelty and doing something to help these animals. Knowing that I’m teaching other people about animal cruelty and how they can put a stop to animal cruelty is a great feeling because I am doing my part on spreading the word and helping people become more aware. Animal cruelty isn’t a very talked about subject, it isn’t something that people pay much attention to and that’s why many animals are abused every day of their lives without somebody to help them and put a stop to this injustice. Even though this is a small project compared to other organizations that fight animal cruelty, I feel good because I am doing what I can to teach other people about this and hopefully they too can stand up to animal cruelty.

My least favorite part of this project is having to see animals that have been abused. When I looking up stories about animals that have been abused, I came across a story about a female pit bull that had been set on fire by her owner then had gotten run over and left fordead until someone came to her rescue. Reading stories like that one makes me feel sad because I don’t know how someone can do such a thing to a helpless animal and not even care about the pain they are inflicting on the animal. Also when I was looking for pictures of animal cruelty to use on my poster, the pictures I had to look at were truly sickening. The pictures I saw were of bloody animals, animals that were so malnourished you could see their bones, poor living conditions, pictures of dog fighting, and graphic pictures of animals that have been extremely abused. Realizing that there are people in this world that don’t even care when they hurt an animal and much less when they kill an innocent animal for their entertainment. It’s truly hurtful to think that selfish, ignorant people can hurt a living, breathing creature that also feels pain and feel nothing in their heart when they see the pain in the animals eyes or see the lasting effect on the animal after the abuse has taken an immense toll on them. Realizing that this injustice happens around me, is the worst feeling and this makes me want to take action and help animals that have been abused.

The most interesting thing I learned would be that animal cruelty happens in a lot of places. In my essay I talked about animal cruelty happening in farms, dog fights, and puppy mills but these aren’t the only places that you will see animal cruelty. Animal testing plays a big role in animal cruelty because many companies test their products on animals which are made for humans and have different effects on animals. Circuses and rodeos are also known to abuse their animals. Animals in circuses and rodeos are deprived of their freedom because they are trained to entertain other people and when they can’t do their “job” right, the animals get punished. Why do we expect so much from these animals when we can’t even give them half the life they deserve because they are basically being kept hostage their entire lives or until they aren’t good enough to entertain us?  

One way I would change this project would be to include something in which we could physically do something to help what we’re fighting for. It is one thing to talk about change but it’s another thing to actually go into the world and do something to change the world. This part of the project should be required so everybody could have a chance to do something in the community. I think it would have been really fun to have gotten the chance to do in my community to help animals that have been abused or teach other people about animal cruelty. It only takes one person to start a chain of change and I would love to be that person that helped change the world.