I became vegetarian when I was in third grade. I told people I did it because I didn’t like how animals were treated, but when I was little that wasn’t true since I didn’t understand how they were treated. In about fifth grade, I started to really recognize why being a vegetarian was so important to me, why helping animals was so important to me.

I’ve traveled the world to help my mother save animals. In Belize, dogs are shot and drowned because there is over population and people don’t know what do with them. It’s something that sickens me.

It’s not just that though. Animals in the United States are killed every day, whether that be for our food, for experiments or because there isn’t enough room in the shelter, it happens.

Animals are treated cruelly all the time, and many people turn a blind eye. They think it’s okay since animals can’t talk or complain or show how hurt and scared they are, but it’s not.

People say they care about animals, but if that were true, why aren’t there more people fighting to stop animal testing? To stop puppy mills? Or even to give animals who know they’re going to die, better living conditions.

The movie Earthlings shows chickens being held in buildings with thousands of other chickens waiting to be slaughtered. My mother knows people who operate puppy mills where puppies are grouped into pens, waiting to be sold to stores for adoption, and makeup companies test on rabbits who wait, locked in cages, to be scarred from makeup that isn’t quite right yet.

There are those who say it’s needed in order for products to be safe for humans, but there are so many differences between the two. Would it be okay if animals were testing on us? There are those who say it’s okay for animals to be in puppy mills because at least they have a home.  Would it be okay for humans to stand on metal wires while it injures us?

For most, the answer to those questions are simple, no it wouldn’t be okay. Just like it’s not okay for us to do that to animals.

19braun@usd489.com