I‘ve been wrestling with the best way to apply my advocacy for animals the last few years. I still don’t have it figured out but the same thoughts keep coming to mind. How can I change the way the world views animals? The way the world views them is why they are treated as they are.
I just watched a video of a man putting tape around a dog’s front and back legs and his mouth. Flopping him around like he was nothing. The whole time this dog was moving around his big dark brown eyes with such fear. This man proceeded to move the dog around like a piece of luggage without any concern for this living being. He proceeded to fling him on the back of his motor bike and sped off. While driving the dog falls of the motorbike onto the road. The guy picks him up like a piece of garbage and flops him back on the bike, this time without even fastening him down. He takes off with one hand on the dog trying to hold him on. You see he was on his way to a “client” to sell this dog for meat. The reality is much worse treatment happens to cows, chickens, pigs, and other animals every day. All for humans, for “normal” society, for food on the table. And while this is happening the animal, the living being, is experiencing extreme fear, panic, and pain.
I am sad (and truth be told angry) that I live in a world where other living beings are seen as less and as something we can do whatever we want with. As long as no one talks about it, as long as we keep hiding our heads in the sand, as long as we cover our eyes & ears and chant “la la la la la” we’ll just keep on trucking.
Not me, not us who can’t keep on trucking. Who in good conscious can’t turn their back on these animals. I don’t know what the answer is and I am unsure of my next chapter of animal advocacy. I’ll just keep praying for clarity on this.
Some people worry about how this affects my own well-being, but the truth is I would be worse off if I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t live with myself. Much of my therapy is in writing posts such as this. It’s a way to let some of the anger, frustration, and sadness out.
I would like to end by letting you know the dog I spoke of in this post was saved by a kind man who saw what the guy was doing to him. The kind man followed him, chased him, stopped him over & over trying to talk the guy into giving up the dog. He finally did! The kind man immediately took all the tape off of the dog and gave him lots of well-deserved pets, hugs, and kisses.
*TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED, EVEN IF THEY’RE A DIFFERENT SPECIES.*
Animals Are Feeling Beings Too 
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I’m glad the dog was saved. So true your closing statement 🙏🕊️☀️
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Thanks Yvon.
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Thanks for sharing. Take care of yourself.
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Dear LeeAnn, thank you for your heartfelt words. I share in all the pain and heartache you feel for the animals, knowing the reality of what life is for the vast majority of animals around the globe… very few escape the tyranny of man’kind’ and the assault on the animals. The systemic industrialized abuse of animals knows no end. Once we are aware, there is no turning back and yes, we do find that our life is never the same.. knowing as we do.
And then rather than witnessing a paradigm shift in humanity, coming to the aid of the suffering animals, we are accused of being ‘negative’ and ‘trying to enforce our views on others’. Rather than a massive shift in how humanity views animals rendering people unable to eat animals, wear animals, experiment on animals, use animals in entertainment (PETA), we hear the excuses why it is “alright to use” animals… that they are “here for us to use”. Such limited -and defiant- thinking.
As you so wisely said, “treat others as you want to be treated”… what a giant step this would be in moving people to view animals not as ‘others’ but as sentient beings worthy of rights, compassion, dignity… not terror, abuse, slaughter. Your wonderful words of “The Way the World Views Them is Why They’re Treated as They Are” is absolute Truth, LeeAnn. Sadly the quote from Animal Activist Gary Yourofsky is exactly how humanity has viewed and thus treated the animals, “The problem is that humans have victimized animals to such a degree that they are not even considered victims. They are not even considered at all. They are nothing; they don’t count; they don’t matter. They are commodities like TV sets and cell phones. We have actually turned animals into inanimate objects – sandwiches and shoes.”
Thank you so much, LeeAnn for your illumined mind and heart. Thank you for persevering on behalf of the animals. Those of us who stand and speak for the animals, also care deeply for one another. Even tho we haven’t met, it is as ‘secret society’ and we recognize one another… but we really do wish all people would join us in this!!! Thank you again dear… and always the best to you… and your great work and efforts on behalf of the animals.
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Thank you so much for your well thought out and conveyed comment. It made me so happy. Since there are few of us animal advocates working every day at making a difference it is such a joyful thing to meet others who are doing the same thing and feel the same way. Then we know we are not alone since it definitely feels very lonely. Again, thank you so much! I am so glad to have “met” you and am looking forward to our continued connection here.
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