Annotated Bibliography
"Animal Cruelty Facts and Statistics: The Humane Society of the
United States." The Humane Society of the United States: The Humane
Society of the United States. Wayne Pacelle, 21 July 2011. Web. 01 Apr.
2012. http://humanesociety.org/issues/abuse_neglect/facts/animal_cruelty_facts_statistics.html.
This
source provided us with several useful statistics about the frequency of animal
abuse and information about the species of animals that are most commonly
abused or neglected. The most common victims are generally cats and dogs, in
particularly pit-bulls. The source also provided us with an approximate amount
of reported animal cruelty cases in the year 2007, and out of that number, it
gave us the percentages of animal cruelty involved with either cats or dogs.
This information was extremely helpful for our documentary because current
animal cruelty in our own community most often involves dogs and cats. By
presenting our audience with the harsh facts of this frequent crime, we can
effectively emphasize our point that animal cruelty does happen in our town. This source also provided statistics about how
animal cruelty is strongly linked to domestic violence, which we found very interesting, and we think our audience will too. Teenagers
typically know about the seriousness of domestic violence and by showing our audience how closely related
these two crimes are, we can emphasize our point about the immorality of animal
cruelty and motivate our viewers to desire a change in our community.
Bill, Henry. The Relationship between Animal Cruelty, Delinquency, and
Attitudes toward the Treatment of Animals. 3rd ed. Vol. 12. 2004. Print.
Henry’s novel, The Relationship between Animal Cruelty, Delinquency, and Attitudes
toward the Treatment of Animals, provided us with information about the
links that abusive criminals have with the way they treat animals and the way
they treat their children or spouse. Domestic violence and child abuse are both
very serious issues, and they are closely related to animal cruelty. The source
also gave statistics about the pasts of animal abusers, which often include physiological
problems and previous delinquencies. Lastly,
this novel gave information about the gender and age of animal abusers.
Generally, they were males over the age of 40, which is similar to the age and
gender of sex offenders. Although these two crimes may seem very different from
each other, they are both committed by the same types of people and they are
both very serious crimes. This helps us to emphasize our point that animal
cruelty shouldn’t be thought of just as a misdemeanor crime, but rather, a very
serious problem that desperately needs a solution, very much like child abuse. Because
this source showed us the relationship between animal cruelty and other serious
crimes, it stresses the severity of our topic.
PETA. "Issues: Companion Animals." Www.peta.com. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 2012. Web. 5 Apr. 2012. <http://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animals/default.aspx>.
When gathering information on specifically domestic animal cruelty, this section of the PETA website proved extremely useful. In the issues section, we found research and statistics on abuse specifically towards "companion animals" such as dogs and cats. With these two specific kinds of animals being a major and most well-known type of animal abuse, this website provided information that is very useful for our documentary viewers to know. Not only did this website provide wonderful information on the topic of cruelty, but it also talks about spaying and neutering your pets, the "pet trade", local animal shelters, euthanasia, and about the overpopulation crisis which is directly related to spaying and neutering your pets. Overall, this website was crucial to our documentary. It covered a broad range of issues related to animal cruelty that we had not even thought of yet to include in our documentary. This will strengthen our documentary's message as a whole now that we can corroborate with this excellent information, facts, and photos.
"Fight Animal Cruelty." ASPCA. 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/>.
The ASPCA website was a very beneficial source for our documentary. Several of the other websites covered facts and statistics about abuse and cruelty, but this website mainly provided ways to take action. The website even included an easy-to-use pledge application that says you will fight to end animal cruelty in your community. Although providing information about the problem we are presenting in our documentary is vital, providing information on how to take action is the most important part of this entire project. ASPCA.org told us very simple ways that people can step up and make a change that will only take ten minute out of your day at the most. This website provided information on how to repot animal cruelty, how to recognize animal cruelty, and how to fight animal cruelty. This information opened our eyes to see how easy it is to help in the fight for animal cruelty, so by sharing it with our viewers, the awakening message will only be spread to more people, hopefully resulting in a domino effect around our community and eventually around the world.
"Pet-Abuse.Com Animal Cruelty Database." Pet-Abuse.Com.
2001. Web. 01 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.pet-abuse.com/pages/animal_cruelty.php>.
This source supplied us with
information about the two main types of animal cruelty: passive cruelty and
active cruelty, and provided us with several examples. The two types of animal cruelty
are basically either neglect or violence towards animals, and both happen quite
often. The website showed us some examples of animal cruelty, which included:
neglect, hoarding, animal fighting, poisoning and shooting. Whether the owner
has deliberately caused pain to his/her animal, or has simply neglected his/her
pet, they are still causing incredible pain and suffering to their animal and
they deserve to be punished. This source showed photos of abused pets, and gave
detailed examples of actual animal cruelty stories. In addition to this information,
this source also gave great advice on how to prevent animal cruelty, or report
local abuse. This source aided us in our documentary making process because it
helped us appeal to the pathos of the audience. This information about the actual
types of animal cruelty and real life examples can show our viewers the truth
about what actually happens to the animals, and sway our audience to feel sympathetic
for the animals. The advice on reporting abuse also helped us because a main
section of our documentary will consist of us discussing several solutions to
this problem, and we can reference the solutions mentioned in this source.
