Pets: Thefts, Violence and Animal Experimentation

Whereas I don’t have time to write you the thank you letter you deserve, I wanted you to know how very much I (and others like me who volunteer countless hours, days, weeks and years picking up the wretched pieces of other people’s irresponsibility, ignorance and stupidity re animal abuse and neglect) appreciate your coverage of this issue in your informative and heartbreaking article (“Dogged By Doubt,” Jan. 15).

ELAINE LIVESSEY-FASSEL

Los Angeles

To trivialize the act of pet theft by comparing the work of Last Chance For Animals with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” is to trivialize violence.

The act of stealing a pet sets off a chain reaction of violence that ends only when your companion animal dies a horrific death, alone, frightened, and tortured at the hands of someone engaged in biomedical experimentation. By allowing an act of thievery and doing nothing to curtail it, we send a message that violence is acceptable if someone proclaims it is for the greater good.

Each violent act committed makes the next violent act easier to endure.

And so violence grows until it is no longer our pets that are the victims, it is us.

Those engaged in biomedical experimentation would have us believe that without these acts of violence, scientific discoveries would come to an end. If biomedical experimentation is as successful as is claimed, then why haven’t we cures for cancer, heart disease, and so on?

The next time you turn on your radio or TV and hear about a new cure, listen to the words. You can always be sure to hear words like may and seems to , but nothing is ever definite, especially when.

Americans can no longer ignore the correlation between the violence that has become a part of our everyday lives and the violence that takes place in the manner in which we put food on our tables, clothing on our backs, and medication in our bodies.

As a nation we are all guilty of condoning factory farming, all guilty for putting animals to death in horrific ways so we can wear their skins on our backs, and all guilty for allowing the biomedical researchers to continue to do experiments on animals that bring us neither cures or eternal life.

MARLENE A. GOODMAN

Sherman Oaks