AR-News: Abuse of pets a symptom

[Ronda Roaring]

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Abuse of pets a symptom


Abusing pets, abusing family

One of the best aspects of last week's "Preventing Child Abuse and Domestic Violence" conference was all the information that made participants go "hmmm."

There are times when a person might verbalize something that makes the rest of us else think. The statement need not be profound -- it simply needs to take hold.

That happened a number of times at the conference sponsored by the University of Georgia and Fort Benning, but these two stuck out:

• In addition to teaching children "Don't talk to strangers," and "don't let a stranger touch you," we need to teach our children to tell us about their day, tell us how they feel about certain situations and certain people. We need to teach our children to verbalize, Linda Cordisco-Steele told those who attended her four-part workshop on child forensic interviewing.

• If a family is dysfunctional, animals are among the first to be abused. Or if a person is beating up a spouse and the children, that person is not likely to be gentle and kind to the family pets, said George Ryan, a police investigator with North Carolina's First Judicial District Attorney's office.

Both Ryan and Cordisco-Steele are trainers at the National Children's Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Stories surrounding the abuse of children are complex, said Cordisco-Steele, and the person who gets the facts about one incident does not get the whole story.

"Acts of physical and sexual abuse are often not exclusive; rather, abusive acts and maltreatment, and inappropriate caretaker behavior are dynamic and interactive," Cordisco-Steele reported in the APSAC Advisor, a magazine published by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.

Children who can provide information in a narrative can provide fuller descriptions of their experiences than less verbal children, she reported.

Because they are unable to tell what the abuser has done, some children -- like animals -- need others to speak for them.

Animal cruelty is seen as a link to violence against humans, Ryan said. A 1980 study in England found that, of the 23 families who had histories of animal abuse, 83 percent had been identified by human service agencies as having children at risk of abuse and neglect, he said.

This link has led to some cross-reporting legislation, Ryan said. Cross-reporting is an approach to reporting incidents of child abuse and animal abuse, which can involve animal care professionals reporting child, animal and spouse abuse.

Ryan showed clips from an undercover investigation conducted by PETA. The animal rights activists had miles of film of a hog breeder beating the hogs and attempting to mate with a 3,000-pound hog. And as it turns out, child welfare agents in two counties had been trying to locate him because of reports of child abuse/neglect. He had avoided them by moving back and forth.

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Contact Kaffie Sledge at (706) 571-8585 or ksledge at ledger-enquirer.com 


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