The puppy-throwing Marine

If you're on the e-mail list of any animal-loving person or organization, you've surely been forwarded a link to the YouTube video of a young Marine tossing a small black and white puppy off a cliff. I have seen stills and chosen not to watch the video (posted below for the few and the brave) as the puppy looks too much like a younger version of my own Beastie.

The outrage over the tossing and the creepiness of it being filmed and distributed (don't Marines have more important things to do on duty?) is understandable, even if it is a fake. (Hey, Hollywood makes unreal stuff look real all the time). If it is, the Marine should be dealt with severely by the military. Anyone who sees the killing of any of God's creatures as entertainment and funny ought not to be trusted with a gun or authority.

But what I find fascinating about animal-cruelty incidents ( like the road rage in San Jose a few years back in which a man grabbed the dog out of a car and tossed it into traffic) is the visceral, ferocious reactions it evokes in many, many people, turning some irrational nuts. The Seattle Times reported that a family of the same name as the Marine received death threats in the wake of the event (story doesn't not make clear if the family is related). How does that serve anything?

I admit too that animal cruelty hits my irrational bone in a way that human suffering just doesn't. I don't know why, only that it does. I can tell myself that killing a dog is no different than the pain, suffering an torture that went into my In-and-Out lunch, I can rationalize that its no worse than the mistreatment of so many children around the world who labor in terrible conditions to make the cheap clothes I enjoy. I don't even want to admit what I do to certain bugs that find their way into my home. And then there's the horror of war in which regular people, including kids, get essentially thrown off a cliff. Where's the outrage? The death threats to the White House?

But I'm not immune either. My gut, and my heart, are wrenched by the idea that the little furry guy in the pictures was real and died a scared, pointless death. Just like it was when I read about the chihuahua who was locked in a freezer during a burglary up in Palmdale last year. Would my heart still ache if it was the dog's owner was left for dead in the freezers by robbers? I don't think so. Would yours?