My husband got angry with me because I didn't kill an ant. I found the little monster crawling on our living room floor and instead of crushing it with my foot, I picked it up and put it outside the door.
"What are you doing?" he asked as he watched me bolt to the door, hand outstretched.
"I'm putting an ant outside," I answered.
"Oh, for crying out loud," he said as he shook his head in exasperation. "Just kill it. It's only going to end up back in the house anyway." Then in the next breath, "You know, sometimes you're too much!"
I watched as the ant ran for safety once outside the door then shrugged my shoulders. "Oh, well," I responded and shot him one of my "be quiet" looks. Meanwhile, our four-year-old son watched and witnessed the entire exchange.
Albert Schweitzer, the great Humanitarian, once said, "Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives."
Recently, I read in the newspaper about two teenage boys who were being charged with animal cruelty. It seems their cat scratched their new puppy on the nose, so they hung it by its neck and proceeded to beat it to death with a baseball bat. Earlier, the same week, a neighbor reported that someone was thowing kittens out of the window of the same apartment. Did these young boys begin by crushing ants also?
It's been said that nearly all children go through a stage of "innocent" cruelty during which they may harm insects or other small animals in the process of exploring their world. However, with proper guidance from parents and teachers, most will eventually develop empathy for the pain animals can suffer. Those who do not develop this empathy, however, can become locked into a lifetime pattern of cruelty.
*The "Boston Strangler," Albert DeSalvo, who killed thirteen women, had, as a youth, trapped dogs and cats in orange crates and shot arrows through the box.
*Brenda Spencer of San Diego, fired forty shots at school children, fatally wounding two and injuring nine others. Neighbors later told police that she had repeatedly abused dogs and cats, often by setting fire to their tails.
Other well-known animal abusers and, subsequently, committing violent crimes against humans include Jeffrey Dahmer, Carroll Edward Cole, and Ted Bundy, just to name a few!
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