By Katharhynn Heidelberg

"If it had been a defenseless little kitten, would you have let this happen?"

It was a sunny afternoon in the early 90s, and I sat, hands folded on my school desk and solemn as the teacher posed this open question, even to those of us who hadn’t been there.

She was referring to a schoolyard fight that had involved two of our classmates; one was hospitalized, the other, arrested. The question was directed at us, though, because, for as many who had stood idly by and watched, there was an equal number who cheered the aggressor on.

Shamed into silence, not by her lecture, but by the perspective it offered, we all concluded that, no, we would never let such a thing happen. Beating a kitten? Sick! Watching? Even worse! Cheering the vile act? What, and sleep that night?

Ah, but a decade or so down the road, I have come to realize that not everyone has profited from such a graphic example. Turns out, some people do beat up kittens, puppies, and other small animals. Not just nuisance ones; not just dangerous ones. No, cruelty to animals is usually perpetrated for no other reason than that it feels "good."

This is baffling. I wonder how it can feel "good" to put duct tape on a cat’s feet and watch it dance. I wonder how it can feel "good" to watch a puppy rotate inside a microwave and explode.

My sister told of a classmate who openly boasted of what he liked to do to kittens. The felines that crossed paths with him would have been lucky to have gotten off with a beating. This individual allegedly made a pastime of burying cats up to their necks and running over them with a lawnmower.

I don’t just wonder how something this horrific can feel "good." I wonder what could possess someone to even think of it.

But people do think of such things, and, worse, they do them. After all, it isn’t murder; it’s "just" an animal. We do much worse things to each other, so, where’s the harm?

Ask the two clowns in Ohio, who found themselves sentenced to jail decades ago, when "be kind to animals" wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen of social consciousness. I have no doubt they were surprised. After all, they had "only" tied two cats together by their tails, thrown them over a clothesline, and watched them fight to the death, taking bets all the while.

Ask too, the psychologists and detectives who investigate serial killers. Do you know what many serial killers have in common, apart from multiple victims? If you said something along the lines of "a pattern of cruelty to animals in their childhood or adolescence," you’re right!

Wantonly destroying an animal is very often a serious indicator of deep-seated rage. It is at first done because torturing one’s fellow man is unacceptable. But it can also have such a desensitizing effect that an individual will take the next "logical" step.

Killing or injuring animals is about two things: superiority and control — the very two things, ironically, that the perpetrators of animal abuse do not in fact have.

Superior beings, after all, behave with mercy and compassion. What does it say about your personality, intellect and sense of morality if your hobbies include harming creatures that can’t fight back very effectively?

If taking out rage on an innocent victim, human or otherwise, is the only means you have of "controlling" what is around you, seek help and — dare I say? — get a life. (And let the neighborhood pets live all of theirs!)