Attitudes Can Lead to Animal Abuse
* In your Aug. 29 story on the Ventura County Fair, one person interviewed at the rodeo stated: “Everybody should do what they like, I guess . . . the animals will survive.”
Perhaps this attitude explains why our hot line routinely receives calls describing cats killed with boiling water, kittens fed to starved dogs, rabbits thrown from two-story buildings, pit bull terriers beaten and abused until they learn to attack, roosters with razor-sharp slashers tied to their legs that are forced to tear each other apart, medical researchers abusing their status to torture everything from mice to monkeys.
This attitude also explains why rodeo cowboys are allowed to electroshock the testicles of bulls, painfully cinch leather straps around horses’ sensitive groins, and jerk infant animals to the ground with ropes tied around their necks while they run in horror at speeds reaching 27 m.p.r.
Can our species really be so callous that we actually believe that “everybody should do what they like?” I hope not.
DENISE FORD
Ventura
Denise Ford is executive director of Animal Emancipation Inc.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
