TEARS is a leading animal organisation based in Sunnydale, Cape Town, and rescues and treats 1 050 animals per month. Around 400 of these cases involve acts of cruelty and/or long-term abuse in the form of shorts chains, malnutrition, preventable disease, over-exposure, dogfighting and bestiality.
Animal abuse in any form cannot be viewed in isolation from violence against women and children. Some young children are exposed to a culture of violence over a long period of time which creates a dangerous disassociation from the pain and suffering that many victims experience and can make them think that physical violence is acceptable. This has the potential to create long-term harm as the cycle of abuse is perpetrated by victims, who themselves become abusers.
This article contains details that may upset sensitive readers:
The TEARS Mobile Clinic was called out to Ocean View on Friday, August 20, after a pet owner allegedly caught her mother’s 66-year-old boyfriend raping her pet dog, Jemma, on his bed. The TEARS team together with the SPCA’s Animal Inspector, confiscated the three-year-old dogs from the residence and took it back to the TEARS Veterinary Clinic where the veterinarian on duty immediately conducted an examination to collect vital DNA evidence for the case. The suspect has since been arrested and faces a charge of bestiality in the Simon’s Town Magistrate Court.
The number of animal abuse cases involving minors is increasing too. TEARS has been receiving reports and seeing evidence of animals being abused and in some cases killed by children.
Many of these are cats, who suffer injuries or are killed using stones or pellet guns. Recently, the TEARS Veterinary Clinic was forced to remove both eyes of a female cat named, Pandora, who was found in Retreat after being shot at close range with a pellet gun.
Pandora was very fortunate to survive and found a forever loving new home. However, her perpetrators were never caught.
What is the way forward?
Animal abuse and neglect is something that can only be countered through compassion education, pet care training and youth enrichment at a grassroots level.
TEARS Animal Welfare Assistants educate pet owners in low-income communities to better care for their animals and commits themselves to secure strategic partnerships with corporate sponsors to help roll-out a sustained Community Education and Training Programme that encourages at-risk youth to become “ambassadors” for animals and to start considering careers in the animal welfare sector, which will provide an alternative to gangs, drugs and violence.
TEARS will be launching a pilot Community Education and Pet Care Training Programme in Vrygrond in the second week of September.
The eight-week course will be hosted by two TEARS Animal Welfare Co-ordinators and a registered TEARS Animal Behaviourist, combining curriculum based and in-the-field learning in the form of weekly educational and dog training workshops at Capricorn Primary School for children aged between eight and 18 years old.
The Programme will promote positive attitudes such as compassion, empathy and respect for all life; and includes free sterilisations and vaccinations of dogs and cats within the area to prevent the spread of infectious animal diseases and curtail illegal breeding and pet overpopulation.
Make a difference. Partner with TEARS and help extend our education mandate and reach more at-risk youth https://tears.org.za/community-education/.
If you would like to donate to TEARS, kindly click here.
Picture/s: Unsplash/Supplied