Same here. But, I don’t ever recall hurting a kitten or pup. Even as a toddler, I always loved cats and dogs. What is it really about them that children love so much? Maybe that they’re mammals?
I think the children who abuse cats and dogs are violent psychopaths in the making. I’d have never ever imagined hurting these creatures.
First I would like to point out that animal-killing is something boys do, and it’s very common. Girls generally speaking simply do not kill any kind of animals, even insects. They’re too tender-hearted for that sort of thing.
Sure, there is a hierarchy to this sort of thing. Most all boys kill insects and that’s no big deal really.
Next is fish. Yes, some boys kill fish for kicks, especially boys who fish for sport, but a fish is a primitive organism. To me though, killing fish is more serious than killing insects. A fish is larger and you can really see it suffer if you kill it. Bugs just die right away and they are so small that it is hard to empathize with them if you kill them.
Next up are amphibians like frogs. For some reason this is a bit more serious than killing fish. Nonetheless, quite a few boys kill frogs and other amphibians. President George Bush did as a boy.
Next up would probably be reptiles. For some reason, I think this is a bit more serious than killing amphibians, mostly because I’ve rarely heard of boys killing reptiles.
It’s rare for boys to kill reptiles because they’re a bit dangerous. Also boys love to catch snakes and make pets out of them. My friends caught kingsnakes and made pets of them. You had to feed them live mice! Our friends cackled with glee watching their pet snakes eat a live mouse. I told you boys are evil. Lizards will also fight back and a lot of them bite, especially those nasty alligator lizards we have here in California.
Next up would be birds. Now we are getting serious because birds are warm-blooded. Killing cold-blooded creatures is not that big of a deal, as they are all extremely primitive creatures far removed from us. The closer the animal gets to a human, the more of a serious matter the animal killing is.
But humans are warm-blooded, so killing warm-blooded creatures is a big deal. The Mexican Indian man next door told me that as a boy in Mexico, they used to kill birds! I could not believe he did that, and he was a bit defensive about it. He came out fine though. There’s nothing wrong with him. But I like birds so I won’t look fondly on bird-killers.
I am just guessing, but I think bird-killers might be older than killers of cold-blooded creatures, who tend to be young boys. As boys become teenagers, most of them start to think that killing bugs, fish, amphibians, etc. is childish and stupid. If they still want to kill animals, I imagine that they graduate on to birds and mammals. But most boys who killed animals as boys simply stop killing creatures when they become teenagers. They simply mature out of it.
Next up of course is mammals. Mammals are warm-blooded, and humans are mammals. If you are hunting mammals for sport with a gun, that is one thing, especially if you are going to eat the animal you kill. But if you are just killing them for kicks (typically by torturing them to death), you’ve got problems, especially if you are killing dogs and cats, as we humans love these animals and make pets out of them.
Yes, many serial killers start out killing mammals as boys. It’s more or less practice for killing humans, which they will do later on. I have no idea if mammal-killing boys can turn out ok. Perhaps some of them can. But if you know of a child or adolescent who is killing mammals, some intervention is needed. As soon as possible. This is a serious matter not to be trifled with.
Also I would like to point out that mammal-killers tend to be older than the other animal-killers listed above. They are usually teenagers aged 14-16, and they can be both boys and girls, but they are mostly boys.