This past year alone, I have seen more animal abuse than anyone would ever want to witness in their life. I'll list off what's gone on around me real quickly here:

Rebel. Across the street from my house is a man named Dewey who owned a sweet little dog named Rebel. She was the sweetest puppy that you had ever come across. But she was always neglected. At first, she was on a chain, and she had a pathetic excuse for a doghouse (a few planks of wood). She was never allowed inside Dewey's house. She sat outside through severe storms and bitter cold, barking her high-pitched bark. When new neighbors moved in next door to us, a lovely, animal-loving couple, something finally happened. The woman saw Rebel. She asked if she could bring Rebel over to her house, where she gave her a good bath, played with her, trained her a bit, and showed her more love than she probably had ever seen in her life. A little while after that, Rebel's sad living arrangements at Dewey's house changed drastically. She had a big chain link pen so she wouldn't be tied up anymore.  She had an actual doghouse and a tarp over the top of the pen so the rain would'nt soak her. But Dewey did nothing to keep up the fair conditions. She lived for months with a seatbelt for a collar. The tarp was never changed, cleaned, or dried when is started to get weighed down with heavy rainwater. Limbs from a tree directly above the pen fell on it.Theame to a head when the neighbor next to Dewey, Donald McKissick, ran out and shot Rebel with a BB gun. My mother witnessed the whole thing. The police were called, and Don was arrested (not for animal abuse, of course) only to be released the next day. Animal Control came to investigate, but Dewey did not allow them on his property. The police did nothing, and Animal Control couldn't do anything, so Rebel received no help. We contacted PETA, and they seemed the only ones who did anything. We gave them the information and e-mailed pictures of Rebel and her living conditions. I am still not entirely sure of what they did. All I know is that I came home from school one day to see an empty pen. Soon after, the pen disappeared, as did Rebel.

The German Shepherd and the Rottweiler. Two houses down from me are two dogs and a few puppies. None of them are fed or watered properly. They may or may not be used for breeding. The puppies have been heard whimpering and they don't even have a proper food dish. The female is in heat and the male oftentimes has sex with her from what I understand. Our aforementioned neighbor was the first to report this, as one of the dogs was caught in her fence (how did he get caught? Both animals are tied up. The rope got caughtin the fence). The police came, inspected the situation, and did nothing. Today, the police were called again, and this time they threatened to arrest my mother and our neighbor if they made "false reports" again. The dogs are still not safe. Nothing has been done to help them.

Rocky. This was not a case of animal abuse, but it's relating to the latter in the title. Rocky was my cat. He was the cuddliest cat you would ever come in contact with. He was killed by a pit bull that was running loose, its owner living on the street just behind our backyard. We had lost sight of Rocky for almost a day, and my mother said that she'd heard high-pitched screaming earlier. My brother came home from work, and he told us that when he drove up, he saw Rocky limping to the garage. We went out to the garage to find him, and when we did, he was visibly quite shaken, and visibly badly injured as he could barely walk on his own. We managed to get him out from his hiding place (under a pool table) and brought him inside to doctor his wounds. It was decided that we would monitor him for a day and take him to the vet if he didn't improve. So he goes to the vet where they investigate his wounds in detail. His hips were out of place, he had a large bite on his leg, and he could not walk. The vet said that even if they fixed his hip back into place, it might pop back out whenever he tried to walk, and having his hip fixed meant another painful and expensive surgery which was financially out of the question. We had him put to sleep that night. They believe that the dog might have had a hold of Rocky in its mouth and shook him around a bit. 

Thats not even all of the events that have transpired over these past few hellish months. It's time that people in authoritative positions assert their authority by enforcing the rights of animals. It's time that animals be seen as living beings and not playthings, or things to use at your own convenience, but living beings with souls.