The mind of an animal torturer

[Miss Zippy]

On the news this morning I heard about a little puppy whose ears had been cut off with blunt scissors (I think by a couple of youngsters). Obviously this is a pretty sick thing to do, but what I would like to know is, generally speaking, what makes a person do something like this? Does anyone have any experience of working with such 'troubled' people or has anyone perhaps studied this as part of a psychology degree etc, who can shed some light on the motives/causes of such behaviour?

[darth vader]

When i was a youth (about 13 years old) i was fishing with some mates. One lad had caught 3 small fish, perch i think. He stacked them one on top of the other, took out an air pistol, and shot a pellet through their heads simultaneously. Then he threw them back in the lake. I asked him why he'd done that, and got no answer other than a shrug and a "why not?" sort of look. I guess if you asked the kids the same question you may get the same response. The moral of the story? sometimes there simply is no answer to why these things happen. If you disagree please explain the Mary Bell case for me.

[Lennon]

I agree with Darth. Its one of those strange things that I don't think follows any pattern. Its like some people say 'the abused, go on to abuse' - this is true in cases of children who were molested or subjected to that kind of treatment by adults who then grow up to do the same to children - maybe they think thats the norm, or maybe they feel some kind of jealousy towards children that didn't live through what they did, so they do it to them. Then there's other cases such as my boyfriends brother who was severely beaten by his step father when he was young for many years, and he now has kids of his own, and purely because of what he went through, he would never dream of hurting any of his children as he wold never wish on anyone what he went through. The Human mind - who will ever work it out?