Kelton L.

Topic: Animal testing

In a town called Thneedville in Northern America, there was a lab considered a non-government group, and let’s just say they haven't had a sunny day in over a decade. They were called Test 2024, and they were testing rats. They had the worst things you could think of: tumors all over their bodies and more, and some even had eyes missing. These animals were in cold rooms for very long times. They had about ten tests a week, and if they resisted, the scientists would put them in a room for a week with no food or light. There was one rat who had been there the longest and was blind in both eyes. They called him 05 because that was when he was introduced to the lab.

When we are waiting in these cold rooms for hours a day, some of us are given drugs to help us stay awake because you never know when we need to have testing done; but the thing with these drugs is we get addicted to them. So the outcome is super crazy, and some of us even chew on ourselves and that causes us not to sleep at night. When we get tested on, these people get angry because their serum did not work, and all along it was their fault for giving us the drugs.

One afternoon I was trying to get some sleep, but when they give us these drugs it’s impossible. I felt the footsteps, then the door opened very quietly, and they grasped my body and I was in shock from what had happened. All I felt was a needle pierce my furry body, then a mask being put onto my face as the needle was slowly going deeper into my skin. Finally it snapped. The second that moment happened, my head drifted down to my body, and I was so uncomfortable from the cold, and that was what made me get sick. I was left in this room, and they finally said that we need to get rid of this rat because he has too many diseases and tumors. I was not healthy enough to get the right results, so they said, “Sir, we have a problem”.  The man who is behind all of this came in and examined my body. He saw that I was not looking so great. He cut open my body and took out the needle; I could barely keep my eyes open. He took the serum out of my body and threw it out. Then I was next to a wall trying to get some warmth. I noticed I had an IV in my arm, but I knew there was something wrong because I hadn’t felt warmth in so long. I thought this whole entire time I was in deep sleep, but nope, I was in this place called the reformatory. This is the place you are taken when you no longer are used for testing because you don't have any more life in you. All I had was a cold damp towel, which is very uncomfortable, and I had a muzzle on me so I would not rip out the IV.

It has been a week since I have seen any of my fellow rats, but it feels like yesterday when I was getting needles pinched and squeezed into my skin. It feels like 30 minutes ago when they said they are throwing me out. Right now I'm in a coma from all of these drugs and I don't know when my life will end.

One morning it was about 5:00 a.m. I heard some loud noises coming from the lobby and some voices too. Every lab official who was in here was getting cuffed, and all the animals were very scared. It reminded me of when I was a little rat and it was just me and my mother. They took every test subject that was useless and brought them somewhere unknown. This very moment I knew for a fact that my life was over, but I was wrong. These people were taking away the actual testers who were working here illegally, and they were going away for a long time. These very calm and gentle government officials made sure that every single test subject was out of here before they had left.

So now I live in a nice home with a young man named Quinton. He was part of saving all the test subjects, and he wanted me, the one with the most wounds. He made sure that I had everything I needed to be taken care of. This was what I had dreamed of back in the lab. He gave me hearing aids and sight again; I'm so happy that I have nicest person taking care of me. ne of the rats is even an astronaut who is on the International Space Station right now. All my best friends live with some cool people; another is even on tour with his owner, who is in a famous band, and one more is living with the government officials as their workplace pet. We have the best life we could think of!

Gavin G. & Milan Q.

Topic: Animal abuse at circuses

I woke up to the beautiful trees, the perfect breeze, and the shining sun. Today couldn't be any better because it was my birthday. I walked downstairs to the smell of oatmeal and the sight of presents on the table. Both of my parents were already awake, and they greeted me with a warming hug. After I had breakfast and opened all my gifts, we went to pick up my friend. It was a long car ride to the circus, but even that was a good thing because we got to play on my new Nintendo Switch even longer!

At the circus, it smelled like buttered popcorn. It was crowded, but I didn't care. I loved this place. Almost as soon as we got there, we both had the same idea: the snack bar. One of my presents was fifty bucks to spend at the snack bar. My friend and I kept eating and eating until we got stuffed. I started to feel nauseated. I told my parents we were going to the bathroom, but my friend and I actually went behind the circus tent and let it all out. When we were finished vomiting, we started to head back, and what we saw was practically traumatizing. We saw a guy beating a horse that had just come from the show. My friend and I looked at each other for a second and then glanced back. We yelled at the man to stop and quickly ran towards the animal. The man dropped the whip, and we unstrapped the horse. The animal was free, but it looked like it didn't know what to do, and at that point neither did we. Until finally, the animal ran away.

***

I woke up in a hot sweaty trailer and I could barely breathe, but that's what I'm used to. I've heard of animals dying of dehydration in here, and honestly, I'm surprised I haven't yet. We used to think that getting picked to be in the circus was the highest honor. We would become famous and do amazing things. But it’s all an illusion. None of that is true. I HATE this life. I'm constantly being physically punished with hooks and whips, carried from place to place in these horrible trailers, and I haven't seen my family in years. One mistake causes me so much pain. I wish I could escape, but I have a show to do, and I have no other choice.

The show today was hard, and at one point there was a man standing while I was running. Then, I fell. The crowd went quiet but quickly got louder as the man said he was OK. I was ushered out of the tent into the back.

I was strapped down, and I was ready for the punishment. This time it hurt more than ever, because this time was different: this time I was thinking of my family. This time I was thinking of my old life. This time, this was the last I could take... but then there was shouting. The whipping stopped and my straps were removed. I assumed that I was going to be put in another cage, but that was it. There was nothing. No hands grabbing me, no straps, no cage. I thought I was dead. Then I realized that I wasn't dead. There was still the noise of the leaving crowd and the smell of old popcorn. I wasn't dead, I was free.

I didn't know what to do, so I ran and I ran. There was shouting and screaming, but I didn't care. I kept running. It wasn't long until I realized that it didn't matter how fast I ran. This was the end for me. There wasn't anything I could do; they were going to kill me. So I ran home. I ran to where I was raised because that is where I wanted to die. I smelled the familiar smell of home, the flowers and grass, and the big oak tree off in the distance. So I sat and cried. Then the sound of sirens, and that was it.

Baron T.

Topic: GMO use on animals

Once there was a boy named Jeff who lived on a farm, and he had screaming goats, big cows, and tiny loud chickens. He would do chores around the house and in the yard. He and his family has a big business: they sold meat to companies called Wellmart, Treeget, and Consco.

He also had a vegetarian friend who did not like the way meat was produced. He thought it was inhumane and cruel. His vegetarian friend was okay with the boy killing animals, but he wanted Jeff to do it without using GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and not in a cruel way. He also disapproved of how the animals are kept in small cages and fed fake food. Jeff wanted to alert his parents about this so they could put a stop to it.

Jeff told his mom, “...and that we should stop using GMO food because it is not good for us to eat and it's not good for the people buying it at the store. We should feed the animals real food, real hay, real corn, not that fake stuff.” The parents did not want to do that because that would mean getting less money when they sell the meat. So Jeff came up with a plan to sneak real food into the animals' diet.

As Jeff snuck into the barn late at night while the floorboard creaks behind him, trying not to step on any sticks or make any loud noises, he tried to find the GMO food bag and replace it with real food he bought from the store the day before. But when he picked up the GMO food, it all fell out of the bag and made so much noise that he thought the neighbors heard. So he had to go back inside to get the broom. He successfully got the broom and swept it up. And then he replaced it, but he ripped off the GMO food label from the GMO bag and put it on the Real Food Bag so when his parents got up in the morning to feed the animals, they actually fed them the real food. The reason why his parents didn’t want to feed the animals real food is because the fake food makes the animals grow faster and makes the meat taste better so the stores can sell it at really low prices. So when he put the real food in there, their animals weren't going to grow as fast. It was about a month later when they had bacon for breakfast and his parents said to him, “This meat tastes strangely good.”

And then one day his parents were reading on the newspaper about side effects of eating meat. And then they realized that meat isn't good for you with GMOs and fake protein in the food. And so from that day on, they stopped buying meat and giving meat to their local stores because they realized what was happening to the people in their town from their GMO meat, and they felt so bad that they decided to just become vegetarian because they knew it wasn't good for them.  

Diego D., Gabe F., Avery M., & Jalen V.

Topic: Animal abuse at circuses

Imagine you were taken from your family and were kept in a cage traveling from place to place doing trick after trick. Well, my name is Thomas the elephant, and I was twenty months old when I was roped on all four legs and dragged away from my family. When I was getting dragged away I was very scared because I didn’t know what was happening, and I was getting taken away from the wild. I was crying for my family, they put me in a cage, then I cried myself to sleep. Then I woke up in the cage, and they were bringing me to this very big place.

Two months of training passed, and I was put in my first show, and I was forced to do uncomfortable practices and exercises and tricks for others’ entertainment. Like they would make me flip over on my head and make me balance. They would whip me if I made a mistake, and they would use bullhooks to make me behave. I had to do that for two months. Before I knew it, twenty years had passed.

***

I’m twenty-two years old now, and the tasks have only been getting worse, and they only feed me peanuts. As days pass, I start having short memories of my family. Like my mom was nice and sweet, my dad was kinda strict, but he was my dad, so I cared about him, and my siblings were very active, and they always wanted to play. I just want to spend time with them, I think, even if it’s the last time I get to see them. I don’t even know if my family is alive.

I realize I need to leave. I need to get of out of here. I’m getting sick of this. I’m traveling too much. I don’t even know where I am right now. I’m in a cage with no room. I can only turn around. I’m at a circus. I’m in a show. The show’s going to start soon. I get on the stage, and I’m getting ridden on. We’re dancing, doing tricks: tigers jumping through hoops and lions riding horses, bears riding bicycles, animals standing on each other. I tripped; the trainers are going to whip me, I think. The show is over; I’m afraid. I get whipped after. Next thing I notice I have been in the circus for fifty-seven years.

***

I'm fifty-nine years old now, and they are going to let me go to the wild. It’s this organization called Lateba. They save circus animals and free them into the wild. I’m too old to do anything at the circus. I'll be retired in an hour. I’m going to be stuck in a cage until I get home.

After 57 years I am free. What is this place? I think. I’m from Africa, and I notice that I’m in Australia, but I also notice that there are elephants around me, but I am still devastated  because I can’t see my family. That trip made me thirsty though, so I look for water. I’m exhausted, walking and walking, sweat dripping down my face, but eventually I find water after many hours. There are no other elephants around the water. I wonder why. Well, more water for me, I think. I start drinking the water. I see something in the water, but I don’t care; it's probably just a fish. The water looks just like the water from the circus: it has dirt in it, but I am used to that. I continue drinking. Then something comes up out of the water and starts biting my trunk and I get dragged in the water. He traps me under! I am dead. I have been eaten by a crocodile.

***

Imagine you were taken from your family and were kept in a cage traveling from place to place doing trick after trick. Well, my name was Thomas the elephant, and I was twenty months old when I was roped on all four legs and dragged away from my family.

Cooper P.

Topic: Puppy mills and pet stores

“Why won’t my dog fetch? Maybe he’s lonely.” I went up to my dog and started petting him. “I’m sorry, boy. Do you want another dog to play with?” Maybe I should buy a new puppy. I thought about the idea of getting a new puppy for the whole day, but I could not decide, so I just went to sleep and thought about it more the next day.

I woke up and I went outside to walk my dog. Whenever I wake up, my routine is to walk my dog out on the sidewalk because there are dirt and plants right next to it. Sometimes I run into other dogs, but my dog is calm about seeing other dogs. If it is a dog that doesn't like my dog, my dog does not like the other dog. That dog usually barks viciously at my dog, and I just simply keep walking.

I got home and asked my wife if it was a good idea to get a new puppy, and I gave her the reason that our dog seems to be getting lonely. She said it was a good idea. “Cooper, you hear that? You’re getting a new friend!” Cooper is going to be happy when he gets his new friend, I thought to myself. It was 12:30, and I had to be at work at 1:15, so I had to leave soon. My work was really close, but I had to prepare.

After I was done with my work, I went over to a pet shop over at the mall to buy a new dog. I was looking at the different dogs that they had, and I picked this small white bichon frise. A question came in my mind before I wanted to ask how much the dog was.

I said, “Where did you get this dog from?”

The clerk said, “This dog was bought from a puppy mill.”

“What is a puppy mill?”

The store clerk looked around for his manager or a fellow employee. Once he realized no one else was there, he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but at a puppy mill, the mother of these dogs is forced to keep on making puppies until the mother hits the point where she cannot make anymore puppies, and then they dispose of the mother.”

I said, “What do you mean by dispose?”

The clerk said, “By dispose I mean kill.”

I thought to myself, That’s really harsh. How could they do such a thing to a poor dog? Then I said, “They don’t do anything else, do they?”

The clerk looked for anyone else and then whispered, “They also treat the dogs really badly, and most of the time the dogs end up having something deformed about them. The owner of this company only buys dogs that have no special conditions so that normal people would buy them.”

I thanked the clerk. I walked out and got into my car, decided not to get a dog there, and drove back home.

Once I arrived home, I told my wife all the details about how the people get the dogs at those pet shops, and I told her that we should not buy a dog from a pet shop.

She asked, “What are we going to do for our dog then?”

I said, “I don’t know. Actually, I’m going to go back and ask him for a better alternative.”

She said, “Are you sure he will actually give you the information you need? I mean, he does work there.”  

I said, “I actually don’t know that, However, worth a shot. It’s not that far away either.”

I drove to the pet shop and asked the clerk if he could suggest to me where to get a dog, and he said, “I already gave you enough information, why should I tell you this now? This is my job, you know.

I said, “My dog Cooper really needs a friend because I think he’s getting lonely.”

The clerk said, “I’m sorry, I know how you feel. I think my dog is feeling the same thing. One suggestion for you is to go to the humane society down the road. The humane society accepts dogs no matter what, even if they have been rescued from a bad home or if they were stray before, and they care for them and wait for someone to adopt them.”

I said, “Thanks for the help. I’ll rate this place low on Yelp but I’ll mention that you did a good job.”

The clerk said, “Have a nice day.”

I then drove to the humane society.