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Oh, I just can't leave this topic alone...
I completely agree with carnation and aggieAXO. It sounds like this girl has serious mental problems and has gotten no help from her parents. If her parents think she can do no wrong and have made excuses for her outrageous behavior, they have NOT gotten her any help because they don't think she needs it. Therefore, she has not dealt with any of the underlying mental problems that have made her think that it is okay to torture and kill an animal (and get into fights with others).
If the cat abuse happened when she was in eighth grade and I'm assuming that now she is a senior in high school, that was ONLY FOUR YEARS AGO. That is not much time in one's life, especially if she has not gotten help. She needs SERIOUS help, much more than just a therapy session once a week or whatever. If I were her parents, I would've thrown her ass into residential treatment so fast after the cat incident, because I would realize that she is out of control and dangerous to herself and (more importantly, IMHO) others. It seriously bothers me that parents can sit around and make excuses for a child who does something so absolutely terrible.
I'm sorry to go on so, but I do have some background in this area. I worked with kids with behavior disorders at a residential treatment facility several years ago, and some of these kids came to us with such issues that there was no way their parents alone could help them, and actually, their parents were the ones who taught them the dysfunctional behavior in the first place. It was amazing, too, how many parents were either in denial or who thought that the kids needed help but they didn't. Excuse me, but do you think that if you raised a kid to burn down a library or suffocate puppies in a cooler (yes, it happened) that YOU are not in need of counseling also? Oh, it made me so mad.
I have also studied animal cruelty law, and I can tell you that animal abuse is a HUGE problem. The way to get most people to understand that it is a problem is to point out that many serial killers start out torturing animals, or that, for example, many abusive men try to control and terrify their mates by torturing and abusing their pets. However, I think that it is our responsibility as human beings to ensure the fair and kind treatment of animals everywhere -- animals should never be abused because they feel pain and are living creatures, and it is OUR DUTY to stop and prevent the abuse.
AggieAXO, I really admire you for what you are doing. I think that animal abusers should go to jail, and I hope to, at some point in my career, have the ability to lobby for stronger animal cruelty laws and better enforcement of them.
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