Animals cannot speak, they do not make decisions, they are innocent; people are the ones who put them in bad situations. They speak to us through their actions and personality and it is undeniable that they just want to be loved by us. We chose to do a topic that encompasses animal cruelty for these reasons; however, we narrowed it down to animals that have no one to fight for them or to speak for their benefit. Choosing this topic was easy because we are very passionate about this social issue and we wanted to bring some attention to it from a different angle. We tried to elaborate the animal perspective in the situations shown in our photos. These photos represent various different struggles that animals have to go through when they are uncared for. Each photo represents a theme relevant to certain emotions that screams to viewers that we need to do something about animal cruelty.
The dogs and cats shown in the photos are the ones that are lucky enough to be in shelters and in the care of people, especially after what they have been through. But no statistic can adequately state just how many homeless, abused, hungry, and lonely animals are out on the streets or bad homes. Some are just dumped out on the streets, left to fiend for themselves or die; others are unfortunately left in an abusive household. The only way to change the rates of animal cruelty is to be aware of our neighbors and to report any suspicious incidents involving animal care. There are also ways to contribute to the cause of stopping animal abuse such as donating to charities like the Humane Society, to report incidents, and to adopt pets from local shelters.
Understanding that animals are just like us is key, the genetic code of a boxer is 94% similar to humans according to Scientific American, proving that we are much more alike then one would think. Animals do have emotions. They cry. They whine. They get angry. They love. They are just like humans, only they cannot explain themselves. As a group we tried to invoke human emotions by demonstrating the emotions of helpless pets; every photo within our project meant something to the photographer and we hope it will to viewers. This blog is dedicated to the animals that are left without a voice.
Photographs are courtesy of the Humane Society of Southern Tucson.
Written by Crystal Loftin & Stephen Parra
