What we are doing isn't enough, animals need justice, and only we can give them that!        
Every year millions of animals are abused in the most horrific ways. A number of these criminals in their teenage years, get away with cruelty to an innocent creature, and have a more lenient sentence due to their young age!  Australia is known to be a nation of animal lovers, most of us have pets and all of us should be horrified at the thought of another living creature being abused. However, those few people that have been caught and convicted for these crimes were given a sentence massively inadequate in comparison to the crime committed. This certainly won’t act as any kind of deterrent to people committing these crimes again. Their age shouldn't matter, and it should NOT allow them to avoid larger bans. What was done before can be done again. 

Every year, more than 10 million animals die from abuse in the US alone.  
Not only do these people not get jailed, but they, after five years or so depending on the case, can own animals again despite the terrible crimes they had committed on a creature so defenceless. These individuals have no right to be doing such horrific things, and yet they get away with it.

Close to 65% of all abused animals are dogs, and sadly Chunky the chihuahua is part of that percentage. Chunky was a victim of severe animal abuse. He was beaten, drugged, set on fire, had his neck broken and left to die slowly, all done by a group of four teenage boys of 15 and 16 years. Regardless of the estimated low chance of his survival, Chunky lived and was soon after adopted by a loving family. This small traumatized chihuahua was tortured so horribly, worse than most cases of animal abuse in which people can get sent to jail for, and yet, the teenagers responsible for the offences got off with nothing more than a five-year ban of owning animals. Even though these people have been banned from handling animals, these people started their cruelty at such a young age, what stops them from doing it again when their ban is over? 

All dogs want is to be happy. Loyalty and love are strong traits in dogs but apparently not in all humans. They say a dog is a man’s best friend, but what happens when that man doesn’t want to be that dog’s best friend? Imagine you’re in that dog’s position, all you want is to be cared for, to be happy, to be loved, but instead, your owner just doesn’t care, maybe they hate you or want you dead, they might be sick of you or it may be just a joke to them but it still hurts.  

Imagine it, the window rattling in its place and the wind wailing soundly in your ears, your thin sore body cold to the bone, fear grips you and you bark loudly for your owner but all you hear are enraged shouts as the door is barged open. You wag your tail, you are so full of excitement and gratefulness that your owner has come outside that you try to run forward but a rusted chain holds you back. You sink to the ground with a quiet thud, the bones in your hollow stomach rattle like the small window closest to your cage. You let out a helpless yelp and whimper, your owner walks towards you, face contorted in heavy anger… 
 and there is nothing you can do to stop them. 

 These animals may not be able to speak for themselves, but they have us to speak for them, so listen.