What I Believe...

One day, when my uncle was a young boy, he was throwing rocks at a frog by his pond. He was not throwing the small rocks to hurt the frog, but when my grandfather came out, that's not what he thought. My grandfather said, " If you accidentally kill the frog, you will be eating it." I believe my grandfather was right for saying so.

Have you ever gone fishing and threw the fish back in, went deer hunting just for the head or skin, squished a bug, or have gone to the circus? All of these cause animals mental or physical pain, just for your own enjoyment. I believe that no one should harm an animal, only for the fun of it.

This is true, because living things are not a game. It's wrong to kill, or just hurt an animal, only for the short amount of enjoyment from it. If you kill a living, breathing thing, it should be for food. My mother was the one who told me up front, " If you ever kill anything just to do it, it will be eaten one way or another." She told me this threat as a child, so i was turned off of harming animals from the beginning. Just little things that children do, such as, pull a dog's tail to see what happens, or pet a cat a little to hard. I believe that everything dies for a reason, and personal pleasure is not a good enough reason.

Since when is it okay to harm another living being? To go around shooting them in their home or stick a sharp object town their throat, jerk it out, and leave them for dead. Or to whip a person and show them off in a cage to a screaming crowd. Or to ride them and hurt them to make them out to kill, and kill them later for it. It is certainly not okay, so if you wouldn't do it to a person, why would you want to do it to an animal, who has no way of protecting themselves.

I love to eat meat, and it is definitely great to do so, but when anyone gets to the point to kill, just for the sake of killing, then i believe it is wrong. When people kill for food, there's no suffering involved, and those people don't hurt the animal mentally and physically over and over until they are ready for it to be dead.

This belief helps me in many aspects of my life. Obviously, I treat animals very kindly, and no matter what the breed or species, I love them all. Also, it helps me to be nice to people and it reminds me never to bully. I would never just pick on one person, just to be mean, the same way i would never hurt one animal, just to hurt. Finally, this belief helps to respect the things around me, like to no squish a but, look at someone the wrong way, or simply disrespect my mother, because of her telling me that one threat, I am there person I am today. I'm going to follow this belief; no one should harm an animal, just for the fun of it, till the day i die.