Introduction

HOOK: An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language. Since ancient times pets have been
man’s best friend. They are considered family just like any other family member.

THEISIS: Millions of domestic animals are abused each year. According to research more than a million
of these animals die because of domestic violence. Even though abusing domestic animals is a felony
that can have a consequence of going to jail people still do it. This is a major problem in the United
States of America; every 10 seconds a domestic animal is abused.

Motive: As I did my research I was astonished by how bad the situation about animal cruelty is in our
country. Our community should be informed of how people treat animals and how this concerns us.
Domestic animals or pets are like family and they do not deserve to be treated this way.

Credibility: The United States has laws that protect domestic animals of unnecessary cruelty. This
cruelty can even lead up to the death of domestic animals.

Preview of Main Points: I am going to focus on ways animals can be abused, looking for signs of animal
cruelty, and how domestic animals are similar to humans,

Body

Main Point 1: All animals can be abused, but I am going to focus mainly on dogs and cats, since they are
the most common pets.

a. To start there are two ways of animal abuse; there is passive and active cruelty. Passive cruelty
involves neglect. Some examples of passive cruelty are starvation, dehydration and much more.
Active cruelty is when the abuser intentionally harms the animal. For example, they could be
whipped or burned by the abuser. A common way of abusing is domestic violence.
b. There are many ways that pets like cats and dogs can be abused. Like being neglected or
abandoned by their owners. According to research when this type of case occurs only a portion
of those cases are reported. Yes, I did say reported, meaning that the authorities were involved,
but those are not the only cases that occurred because some cases like these are not reported
to the authorities. In 2010, only 417 of cases were reported in the United States. Also 70% of the
abusers also have records of violent crimes. This is becoming a huge problem in our community.

Transition: Now that that we are informed about how pets can be abused let’s move on to how to
detect animal abuse.

Main Point 2: Since I said I was going to focus on dog and cats let’s see how we can detect animal abuse.

a. First of all there are multiple ways that a dog or cat can be detected to be abused.
b. Malnutrition is a common sign of abuse usually pets are so skinny that you could see s their rib
cage.
c. Hair loss or diseases in their skin or eyes.
d. Also injuries that are not expected like limping.

Transition: Now let’s move on to how domestic animals are similar to humans.

Main Point 3: Pets and humans have many similarities that could have never been thought of.
 a. Domestic animals can feel and they also have different emotions, so if they are abused they can
feel that they are not loved. For example dogs and cats. Dogs and cats can feel when their
owners are happy or sad. If their owners are sad they try to cheer them up like humans try to do
when others are sad too.
b. If a person feels bad when they do something incorrect

Conclusion

So in conclusion, today we have learned about types and ways of abusing animals also the similarities
between humans and domestic animals. Domestic animals cannot talk, but just by their appearance we
cat feel a lot from them.