Solitaire Verina
Mr. Thomas
Honors English I
22 December 2014
Animal Cruelty; What Happens Behind Closed Doors
Have you ever found yourself wondering how the steak on your plate came to be, or how people managed to train a lion to perform like a house-cat? Well you would be surprised at the amount of abuse and suffering that went into the performance, or that meal. Animal cruelty is all around us, and overlooked by far too many.
One of the most undisclosed forms of abuse is horse racing. Weighing approximately 1,000 pounds, horses are supported by ankles the size of human’s (“Horse Racing”). During racing and training, these animals are whipped relentlessly, and are made to run on top of dirt-packed tracks at speeds of nearly 30 miles per hour …show more content…
These animals are aggressively administered a plethora of drugs before racing/daily training, but not for the conditions that these drugs are produced for. Trainers use these drugs (muscle relaxants, thyroid medications, etc) to mask pain, and to reduce inflammation while these animals are running, enabling them to push the horses past the point where they would normally be unable to continue (“Horse Racing”). It is also very common for horses to display a variety of scars on their legs, as a result of being burned with liquid nitrogen in an odd attempt to promote blood flow throughout these animal’s sore legs (“Horse Racing Exposed”). Most horses begin racing at the young age of two, meaning that their bones are not fully developed. Because of this, the animals are very prone to injury. Many horses are raced so often that their bones begin to deteriorate. When all of this is over, it is thought that the animals that did not die of injury (like the …show more content…
Contrary to popular belief, these animals are not roaming open fields, and feeling the sun on their backs as they build nests, or root around in the fresh soil. They are kept in small wire cages, or gestation crates, inside of long, windowless sheds where they don’t even have the room to turn around (“Factory Farming: Cruelty to Animals”). To produce dairy, cows are forcefully, and harshly impregnated by human hands. The calves are taken from the mother nearly directly after birth. If the calf is a male, he is slaughtered immediately, and produces veal. If it is a female, then she is raised to face the same torture her mother endures daily. When the animals have suffered this way for years of their lives, they are then deemed useless, and are slaughtered (not euthanized, but slaughtered). Pigs suffer the same fate. After being forcefully impregnated with false semen, these intelligent animals are trapped in gestation crates that are barely the size of their own bodies for months on end (“Pigs on Factory Farms”). Pigs are curious, and brilliant animals, and become frustrated with this lack of enrichment. Some take to self-mutilation, and bang their heads against the walls of the cage, or bite their own tail. As a result of this, their tail is more often than not hacked off, without the use of anesthetic. While what these animals endure is horrendous, birds have it the worst. This is because all birds are