Reflections on Love for Animals and Their Protection

Love for Animals

My love for pets was born with me. I remember very well that when I was a child, every Sunday I used to force my parents to take me to a small farmhouse that was about one hour from my town, where I used to spend all the afternoon. You can learn many things living with pets, especially with a dog. For example : a dog is happy just for simple things (in fact a dog is very happy when you throw its ball); having a dog also means having an active life (in fact you always have to play with your dog or you have to take it to park even if you are tired.

Experiences with Luna

I have a dog, her name is Luna, she is a mixed of races, she is a small dog and she is 29 years old (dog age ), every day she is fed, washed and cuddled as a baby. Luna is very important for me , if I didn’t have her my house would be empty. People that have a dog aren’t never alone, in fact Luna is always near me even if I rebuke her because of her mistakes. There is only a disadvantage, that is that every day we have to clean every room of the house because of her long hair.

Work and Passion for Dogs

I worked in a shopping center, in Benevento, not far from here, where every year our director organized a dog show and every year he asked me to be a member of the jury because of my love for dogs and I always accepted, of course. We used to divide dogs into three categories: small, medium and big dogs. People from different towns or cities participated with their own dogs, and every dog had to get through three tests: A beauty test, a test for its agility and a test for its obedience. There was only a winner for each category, and the winner got a gold collar. It was a very beautiful show and people had the possibility to know and see different races of dogs. Even if I have a dog she has never participated to a dogs show especially because she hates staying among many people.

Abandonment of Animals

As soon as Summer arrives, on T.V. we hear about the abandonment of dogs or pets, this especially because lots of holiday resorts don’t allow tourists to take their dogs with them. People abandon them on motorways or on isolated streets so that their pets can’t find their way back home. A lot of them die , and many become aggressive. In Italy the abandonment of dogs is punished by law.

People that abandon pets are arrested or have to pay a high fine, thanks to this law and thanks to same movements against the abandonment of pets, the number of pets that are abandoned is fortunately reduced.

Movements Against Animal Testing

On 28 April twelve young people , 4 women and 8 men, were arrested because they released twenty beagles from Green Hill. Green Hill is a firm , situated in Montichiari, near Brescia, that uses dogs for scientific experiments. These youngsters spent 48 hours in prison and eventually were released. Unfortunately three of the twenty dogs that they released were taken back to Green Hill but seventeen of them were adopted.

The leader of this movement is the former minister of tourism Michela Vittoria Brambilla. After this event she has been in many shows in different countries where people, who love pets like me, expressed their opinion against scientific experiment on animals and their slogan was according to me very beautiful:“ we have to give a voice to who hasn’t a voice”. This event reminds me of when I studied pain therapy at University. We went to

laboratories where there were many hamsters on which researchers carried out experiments. One day I went to a laboratory very early in the morning and took away a hamster, I called him Jerry and today Jerry is 5 years old and he lives with my grandmother! According to me Green Hill and similar laboratories should be closed, if this happened, Italy would be the first nation that doesn’t permit scientific experiments on animals so it would become a humanitarian example for all the European community. I think that we should save these animals from hell so we should insist on alternative methods which could leave our friend animals in peace.