Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and animal abuse.

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Do you believe that is true?

PETA seems to believe it is true. I don't.

I agree, I don't believe it is true either. The article says that their friends said that the boys 'bragged' about mutilating animals, but I've never read anything about anyone saying that. So, I'm confused as to where they got the idea that they abused animals.

Jenn wrote:

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Do you believe that is true?

I've seen this be investigated for years on the board and a few others.

NOT TRUE AT ALL.

One idiot journalist pulled this out of their ass, or got confused, and it's become something of an underground rumor. (kind of like the "Isaiah Shoels pulled down Eric's pants in the cafeteria" did to a lesser extent)

I don't believe Eric abused animals at all. I think this because his friends had mentioned how much he loved and cared for his dog Sparky, took time off work to take care of it when Sparky was having seizures and apparently cried about it. Also in His You Know What I Hate he mentioned that he absolutely hated when people were mean to animals and would severely hurt anyone who did. He also mentioned in his I Am Poem that he cries every time he sees or hears a dog die. I know we cannot take every testimony as true and we also cannot take everything Eric said as true but I do believe this. Plus if he did want to hurt animals like he did to people wouldn't he write/talk about it as well?

I know we've discussed the boys being animal abusers in the past and I think most of us can agree that one thing Dylan and Eric didn't do was harm animals. I Admin another page that has nothing to do with Columbine (it's a page about animal cruelty) and ironically someone shared this with the page yesterday.

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No way do I believe they abused animals. Its true that psychopaths tend to hurt animals starting at a young age, but neither of them were true psychopaths. Eric would stay home from work when his cat was sick and Dylan would cover his shift for him. An animal abuser would never do that nor would one cover a friends shift over a cat. Animals were probably easier for the boys to attach themselves to than other people. A lot of people with reclusive forms of mental illness tend to lean more towards loving pets than having friends.

Nirvana92 wrote:

No way do I believe they abused animals. Its true that psychopaths tend to hurt animals starting at a young age, but neither of them were true psychopaths. Eric would stay home from work when his cat was sick and Dylan would cover his shift for him. An animal abuser would never do that nor would one cover a friends shift over a cat. Animals were probably easier for the boys to attach themselves to than other people. A lot of people with reclusive forms of mental illness tend to lean more towards loving pets than having friends.

Actually, I believe Eric had a dog. Dylan was the one with cats. He was afraid that the mountain lions would hurt his cats when they were allowed outdoors. Eric also wrote in either his journal or one of his rants that the planet should be left for the animals. They certainly didn't talk like animal abusers and I don't think there is any comments or quotes from real witnesses who claim they abused animals.

And yes, Eric did stay home from work when his dog was sick. He was very concerned that his dog would die, I imagine.

I have never pondered over the thought of Eric and Dylan showing Zoosadistic tendencies. I believe those claims are bogus, and as others have mentioned in earlier replies, Eric even had a pet dog named Sparky, a pet who he loved; no doubt about that.

If E&D were to have harbored aggressive intentions towards harming animals at one stage prior to the shootings, I would imagine the animals would have been particularly small (a bird, mouse, insect, etc.) But then again, I will verify that the chances of E&D perpetuating any such actions are infinitesimally small, based on what we know about them through police reports, family, and school staff. Those behaviors link to the MacDonald Triad, a set of negative behaviors more frequently observed in the childhoods of disorganized serial killers, not mass murderers.

Ted Bundy loved animals, especially dogs. There was no known instances where he had hurt animals. And he ended up being a pretty notorious serial killer. So no, I don't think animal slaying is a prerequisite for psychopathy or mass murder. Eric showed signs of psychopathy but those signs could also indicate other mental disorders.

Hitler loved his dog.

Dogs are cute.

I don't think Eric was a complete psychopath. He had a hatred for the human race that, as far as I can tell, didn't spread to animals. He had a dog named Sparky, I read somewhere (I think acolumbinesite maybe?) that he cried when Spark got lost for a while and they had to look for him.

His entire life has been extensively studied by many, many people and yet nobody has found solid proof. That seems to me like he wasn't an animal abuser.

Also a question: I vaguely remember reading somewhere that he said (in his journal I think) that it makes him very upset to think about dogs being hurt or dogs dying? Is this my imagination or can anyone tell me where it comes from? Danke

eli27 wrote:

I don't think Eric was a complete psychopath. He had a hatred for the human race that, as far as I can tell, didn't spread to animals. He had a dog named Sparky, I read somewhere (I think acolumbinesite maybe?) that he cried when Spark got lost for a while and they had to look for him.

His entire life has been extensively studied by many, many people and yet nobody has found solid proof. That seems to me like he wasn't an animal abuser.

Also a question: I vaguely remember reading somewhere that he said (in his journal I think) that it makes him very upset to think about dogs being hurt or dogs dying? Is this my imagination or can anyone tell me where it comes from? Danke

You're right, I think it was on his "you know what you hate" section of his web page.

Yeah they did not torture animals. Some people diagnosed as psychopaths killed or tortured animals, but many have not.

There's some (pretty sketchy imho) info that suggests a correlation between gneral antisocial behavior, ASPD and animal abuse. However I have not encountered a study showing any significant correlation between animal abuse and specificlaly psychopathy.