In theory and practice

There are many reasons why individuals abuse animals. Animal cruelty covers a wide range of actions (or lack of action). Learning about animal abuse has revealed patterns of behavior employed by abusers. Animal cruelty is often broken down into two main categories: active and passive, also referred to as commission and omission, respectively.

Passive cruelty is typified by cases of neglect, in which the cruelty is a lack of action rather than the action itself. Examples of neglect are starvation, dehydration, parasite infestations, allowing a collar to grow into an animal’s skin, inadequate shelter in extreme weather conditions, and failure to seek veterinary care when necessary.

In many cases of neglect in which an investigator believes that the cruelty occurred out of ignorance, the investigator may attempt to educate the pet owner, then revisit the situation. In more severe cases, exigent circumstances may require that the animal be removed for veterinary care.Cruelty in film exists in movies overseas. There is a case of cruelty to animals in the film, according to its director. In the film, a real is skinned alive while are mutilated. Several animals were killed for the camera in the controversial film The images in the film include the slow and graphic beheading and ripping apart of a a being beheaded and its brains being consumed by natives and a being chopped apart. In fact, Cannibal Holocaust was only one film in a collective of similarly themed movies that featured unstaged animal cruelty. Their influences were rooted in the films of, which sometimes contained similar content.

More recently, the video sharing site has been criticized for hosting thousands of videos of real life animal cruelty, especially the feeding of one animal to another for the purposes of entertainment and spectacle. In spite of these videos being flagged as inappropriate by many users, YouTube has generally failed to take the same policing actions to remove them that they have with videos containing or sexual content.