Why Animal Cruelty Stays With Me

Animal cruelty bothers me more than I can explain. It isn’t just something I read about and shake my head over. It stays with me. I think about it when I’m driving, when I’m trying to sleep, when I see transport trucks on the highway. It’s like I can’t turn it off.

Temple Grandin once said that she “thinks like an animal.” As an autistic person, she describes experiencing the world in vivid sensory images, which allows her to understand how animals feel in stressful environments. When I read her work, something clicked. I’m autistic too, and I sometimes wonder if this is why animal suffering hits me so hard. I don’t just intellectually understand it. I imagine it. I feel it.

One example that has never left me is pigs.

Research has shown that pigs are highly intelligent and emotional animals. They can solve problems, recognize individuals, form........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)