| By Pat Stanislaski Courier News Editorial, August 26, 2005, Page A7, Opinion02 I read with interest your recent story regarding a local couple charged with torturing and mutilating five cats, three of which had to be euthanized due to their injuries.
It was quite ironic to see the article in the paper since I had just finished training a group of NJ CAP (Child Assault Prevention) workers about the correlation of animal abuse and other forms of family violence.
Most people do not realize nonaccidental injuries to animals can serve as harbingers of future interpersonal and family violence. Some of our society's most prolific serial killers began with murdering their own pets or other animals in the neighborhood.
In a Massachusetts study, 70 percent of animal abusers had records for criminal violence, drugs or social disorder. Almost half of those abusers committed their crimes after abusing animals. Many of the young people responsible for school shootings across the country had a history of torturing and mutilating their pets.
Given these statistics, the staff of the Belle Mead Animal Hospital in Hillsborough is to be highly commended for their advocacy on the part of these innocent animals. Not only did they intervene by reporting the abuse to authorities -- which many veterinarians fail to do -- but they may have called attention to two people whose violence toward animals might one day be carried over to each other, to their children or to their community. It is not an easy thing to report clients who are paying you for your services. But, it is the right thing to do when vulnerable and voiceless animals are hurt with such malice.
Perhaps we should all remember the words of Immanuel Kant who said, "He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."
I, for one, am glad the staff at the Belle Mead Animal Hospital made the right judgment. Who knows how many more animals -- or people -- this couple might go on to hurt.
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