ANIMAL CONNECTION

Archive for the ‘Violence Abuse Neglect’ Category

No matter how you sugar coat it, there is abuse and neglect all around us.  Whether it’s towards an adult, child or animal…abuse is abuse, neglect is neglect.  A couple of days ago a 5 month old girl died in Florida because her parents would not feed her.  She was starved to death.

Awareness of your surroundings, and what you see, is key to stopping abuse and neglect.  There are authorities in your community you can call who will investigate.  It is better to be safe, and maybe save a life, than be sorry.

Here are some facts that I hope will educate people to become more aware of what is going on around them.  You might save a life, human or animal.

1. 98% of Americans consider pets to be companions or members of the family.   For many battered women, pets are sources of comfort providing strong emotional support.

2. Animal abuse and neglect is linked to domestic violence.  Animal cruelty problems are people problems.  When animals are abused, people are at risk. There is a strong link between harming pets, or livestock, and some men’s perpetration of domestic violence. Some men threaten to harm animals, or actually harm them, or kill them as a means of coercion, control and intimidation.  This form of power and control is more likely to occur when women or children have close emotional bonds with their animals.

3. Several studies were conducted on woman in domestic violence shelters.  They show 24% to 80% of the women reported that their male partner had threatened to harm, actually harmed, or killed their animals.  Most of the studies have been conducted in USA and Canada.  In the UK a study reported that nine family pets a week are reported as abused by perpetrators of domestic violence

4. Also, it’s been shown that men who abused their pets were more dangerous and more controlling than men who did not.  These men demonstrated more tactics of power and control including sexual violence, marital rape, emotional violence and stalking compared with men who did not abuse their pets.

Some statistics from different sources:

1. 71% of pet-owning women in shelters reported their abuser injured, maimed, killed or threatened family pets.  32% reported their children had hurt or killed animals.

2. 68% of battered women reported violence towards their animals. 87% of these incidents occurred in the presence of the women, and 75% in the presence of the children.

3. 13% of intentional animal abuse cases involve domestic violence.

4. Between 25% and 40% of battered women are unable to escape abusive situations because they worry about what will happen to their pets or livestock should they leave.

5. Abusers kill, harm, or threaten children’s pets to coerce them into sexual abuse or to force them to remain silent about abuse.   A lot of these kids turn around and do the same thing to someone else. They do what they are taught and many hope it will keep their own pet safe.

6. It’s been documented that 70% of animal abusers also had records for other crimes.

7. Investigation of animal abuse is often the first point of social services intervention for a family in trouble.

Trivia:

1. More American households have pets than have children.

2. We spend more money on pet food than on baby food.

3. There are more dogs in the U.S. than people in most countries in Europe – and more cats than dogs.

4. A child growing up in the U.S. is more likely to have a pet than a live-at-home father.

5. Pets live most frequently in homes with children: 64.1% of homes with children under age 6, and 74.8% of homes with children over age 6, have pets.

6. The woman is the primary caregiver in 72.8% of pet-owning households.

7. Battered women have been known to live in their cars with their pets for as long as four months until an opening was available at a pet-friendly safe house. [

If You Need Help

Contact your local humane society, SPCA, animal control agency, or veterinarian to see if they have temporary foster care facilities for pets belonging to battered women.

What You Can Do

1. Have your pets vaccinated against rabies, and license your pets with your town or county: make sure these registrations are in your name to help prove your ownership.

2. Consider and plan for the safety and welfare of your animals. Do not leave pets with your abuser. Be prepared to take your pets with you: many women’s shelters have established “safe haven” foster care programs for the animal victims of domestic violence.

3. Alternatively, arrange temporary shelter for your pets with a veterinarian, family member, trusted friend, or local animal shelter.

If you have suggestions, feedback or information that can help, and you want to share, PLEASE DO!

These days there are more and more people becoming vocal about their food, what they eat, where their food comes from, etc.  Haven’t you heard the term “ignorance is bliss?”  When it comes to this subject of food, I sometimes wish I didn’t know as much as I do.  On the flip side, I hope, the more I know the better off I will be in the long run, if I use that information properly.  Case in point……

I am from New Orleans and always loved French food.  I recently visited a French Restaurant and their “specialty” is Foie Gras.  I asked a lot of questions about this food because I really did not know all of the details.  Once I was informed I came home, did some research, and thought, “This is something I would like to write about.” Do you sometimes eat food because it is called a delicacy or because it’s expensive?  Do you know what you are really eating or where it came from?  Do you care?

Translated literally from French as “fatty liver” and pronounced ‘fwah grah’.  It is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of male ducks and geese that are also diseased livers.  When you think about it, who would want to eat a diseased liver anyway?   At just a few months old, ducks are confined inside dark sheds and force-fed enormous amounts of food several times a day.  The ducks and geese are held, one-by-one, and a metal pipe is forced down their throats so the food is force fed directly into their bodies.  This happens to them every 3-4 hours everyday.  The pipes puncture many birds’ throats, sometimes causing the animals to bleed to death.  Many become so sick they die.  In a matter of weeks these animals are extremely overweight and their livers are 10 times the size they should be.  The birds who survive the force-feeding are killed, and their livers are sold for foie gras.  Although widely condemned, it’s also widely consumed, not only in the heartland of France, where they LOVE this food, but in many other countries too.  Here is a video for you to see.

Banning any food, especially “luxury” food, has been a challenging issue for chefs, who generally defend their right to use whatever they want.  It usually has to do with the demand and price these items command. These are not the only animals that are treated in such harsh ways.  There are many issues around the treatment of all kinds of animals.

There are also a number of well known people who are doing their part to bring these types of subjects to the general population.  One such person, who is also a well known chef, is Wolfgang Puck.  As part of a new initiative to fight animal cruelty, Puck said he will no longer serve foie gras. In his fine-dining restaurants, eateries and catering venues he will use only eggs from hens that have lived cage-free; veal from roaming calves; and lobsters that have been removed from their ocean traps quickly to avoid crowded holding tanks.   “We want a better standard for living creatures. It’s as simple as that,” Puck said.  He believes the best-tasting food comes from animals that have been treated humanely. The campaign to stop its sale is gathering growing more and more support.

Even people like Roger Moore (A.K.A. James Bond) and Bea Arthur are opposed of the treatment of the ducks and geese, as well as the industry as a whole for allowing the sale of foie gras.   See the video from Roger Moore.

Many chefs at high-end restaurants, some smaller food-service chains and grocery chains like Whole Foods have refused to buy meat and eggs unless animals were raised under certain conditions.  They also are aware that Americans are becoming more health conscious about what they eat. In 2000, McDonald’s became the first major American food company to impose minimum animal-welfare standards such as increasing cage size on its egg producers. California has decided to ban the production and sale of foie gras starting in 2012.  Chicago imposed a ban last year, and bans are being promoted in Illinois, New Jersey and New York.

To stop this act people will need to stop consuming this food and ask chefs to stop serving the dish. If  you have thoughts, stories, information, etc.  please share it so other people will know your thoughts.  This is what I found in my search for the real answers behind the question, “What is Foie Gras?”  What do you have to say?

October 2nd, is dedicated to exposing, mourning, and memorializing the needless suffering and killing of the more than 55 billion cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, and other sentient land animals in the world’s factory farms and slaughterhouses.  Read More Here

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