Dispelling the Animal Abuse Myths

A quick search on Google Scholar gets 798 hits when "Harris Klebold animal abuse" is searched. Many of these articles mention things such as "Harris and Klebold often bragged to friends about mutilating animals" and one research article about adolescent shooters and animal abuse contends that:

Harris, 18 years old, and Dylan Klebold, Colorado; killed 12 classmates
and one teacher before killing themselves; Harris enjoyed smashing the heads
of mice with a crowbar and setting them on fire; Klebold shot woodpeckers (Muscari, 2004)

I think I already know the answer to my question, but is there ANY evidence, any at all that suggests that either participated in animal abuse or in even bragging about it to friends? I feel we would have heard about this if it true; I thought both boys loved their respective pets.

Where would this notion come from that researchers would make blatantly false accusations, just so that the boys would fit the pigeon-holed description of what they want a young murderer to be?

Not that I'm aware of. On Harris' mental health self-evaluation form (which I'd like to believe he was for once being honest when answering - he admitted having homicidal thoughts on it!), he did not indicate that he had issues with incidents of cruelty to animals. I've heard he was fond and concerned for his ailing dog. I also recall in EH's ramblings that he thought mankind should "give the Earth back to the animals". I'm not aware of Dylan ever going out of his way to act cruelly towards animals, either, but many like to say he was fond of his cats, however, I know Sue mentioned in her journal that she was unhappy that Dylan had failed to care for the family cats in her absence.

To the best of my knowledge there isn't any concrete evidence. In fact most stories involving E and D with animals paints the opposite picture. I've heard Eric loved his cat so much that he had Dylan cover a shift at Blackjack once when it was sick so he could stay home. I just can't imagine either of them wasting their anger on animals when it was people they really hated.

bubbles wrote:

Not that I'm aware of. On Harris' mental health self-evaluation form (which I'd like to believe he was for once being honest when answering - he admitted having homicidal thoughts on it!), he did not indicate that he had issues with incidents of cruelty to animals. I've heard he was fond and concerned for his ailing dog. I also recall in EH's ramblings that he thought mankind should "give the Earth back to the animals". I'm not aware of Dylan ever going out of his way to act cruelly towards animals, either, but many like to say he was fond of his cats, however, I know Sue mentioned in her journal that she was unhappy that Dylan had failed to care for the family cats in her absence.

That just reinforces the idea Dylan was lazy, not that he was an animal abuser. I believe he was incredibly lazy/unmotivated, but did care for his cats. I feel the opposite for Eric in terms of motivation, but I feel he cared for his animals deeply too.

Oh of course, I never claimed he was an animal abuser, but considering people often mention that he cared a lot about his cats, it strikes me as odd that he couldn't even exert the effort to feed them (presuming this is what Sue was referring to). I see that as more selfish than lazy, but then again, what would you expect from someone selfish enough to do what he eventually did.

bubbles wrote:

Oh of course, I never claimed he was an animal abuser, but considering people often mention that he cared a lot about his cats, it strikes me as odd that he couldn't even exert the effort to feed them (presuming this is what Sue was referring to). I see that as more selfish than lazy, but then again, what would you expect from someone selfish enough to do what he eventually did.

That shows you how lazy Dylan really was!

Nirvana92 wrote:

To the best of my knowledge there isn't any concrete evidence. In fact most stories involving E and D with animals paints the opposite picture. I've heard Eric loved his cat so much that he had Dylan cover a shift at Blackjack once when it was sick so he could stay home. I just can't imagine either of them wasting their anger on animals when it was people they really hated.

It's so sadly ironic that the boys could show such empathy for animals, but not for human beings.

I was just really bothered by the plethora of "research" out there that I found that just casually puts E/D in the same grouping of animals abusers as many young killers were. Not that I feel any sympathy for E/D because they apparently cared for their pets, but just because it's part of the misinformation that is out there that is still repeated ad nauseum even to this day.

Rarely find myself defending E or D, but no.. there is zero evidence either abused animals. Evidence shows they had extremely healthy relationships with their pets.

Back a loooong time ago when the forum was only 2 weeks old, we talked about this a little bit. Here is a thread and article you may be interested in, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. It's always a good thing to bring up topics again from time to time to get new perspectives and opinions, but you may be interested in what others back then had to say. For the most part, I think everyone is in agreement that Dylan and Eric did not torture animals.

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And we discussed it again a little over 2 years ago in this thread.

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Nirvana92 wrote:

To the best of my knowledge there isn't any concrete evidence. In fact most stories involving E and D with animals paints the opposite picture. I've heard Eric loved his cat so much that he had Dylan cover a shift at Blackjack once when it was sick so he could stay home. I just can't imagine either of them wasting their anger on animals when it was people they really hated.

You mean his dog.

ThoughtBox wrote:

bubbles wrote:

Oh of course, I never claimed he was an animal abuser, but considering people often mention that he cared a lot about his cats, it strikes me as odd that he couldn't even exert the effort to feed them (presuming this is what Sue was referring to). I see that as more selfish than lazy, but then again, what would you expect from someone selfish enough to do what he eventually did.

That shows you how lazy Dylan really was!

Well, a combination of both, I guess, but I still believe that it was more of a reflection of his selfish nature. He would rather his cats go hungry than exert the minimal effort it takes to feed them? That's pure selfishness right there. Sue certainly had a point when she told him he needed to stop thinking about himself only.

Are we sure it was about him not feeding them? Or was it more like he just wasn't cleaning up after them/ changing the litter and such...

^According to a Google search, it's believed that Sue was inferring to the feeding of the cats. I mean, if this guy is selfish enough to turn the lives of his own family upside down, I wouldn't put it past him to be too self-centred to consider the needs of the family cats.

bubbles wrote:

^According to a Google search, it's believed that Sue was inferring to the feeding of the cats. I mean, if this guy is selfish enough to turn the lives of his own family upside down, I wouldn't put it past him to be too self-centred to consider the needs of the family cats.

Personally, I don't think the care of pets should be left up to children or teenagers anyway. Too many times you hear about pets not being taken care of and the parents using the excuse 'well my 6 year old son wanted a puppy and then wouldn't feed it or walk it'. And no, that's not what I am saying happened in this particular case, but I just don't think kids are mature or responsible enough to take on the big task of taking care of animals.

With Dylan, he was probably either too lazy or just didn't even think about the cats and feeding them. If it isn't something he was used to doing, then it's quite possible he just woke up in the morning, went about his normal routine and ran out the door, not even giving the cats a single thought. Call it selfish, lazy, irresponsible or whatever but it's certainly not abuse and I doubt it was even intentional. But [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] does make a great point, in the grand scheme of things, Dylan really didn't care about what his actions would do to his family, so it isn't too far fetched that he wouldn't care if the cats weren't taken care of properly.

But, this topic is referring to abuse and I don't think Dylan abused his cats. I'm not even convinced that him not feeding them was intentional. He was a teenage boy. I'm a grown woman with 3 cats and there's been times I have had to ask myself if I remembered to give the cats clean water, or did I scoop the litter boxes? It happens.

Yes, I never said he abused his cats, it just perplexes me when people claim he was really fond of his cats yet he was too lazy/self-involved to (presumably) even feed them. I think teenagers are old enough to be able to be trusted to care for a pet. I mean, he had his driver's license. If he was to be trusted on the road, surely he was capable of caring for a pet, especially for a short amount of time? But when a teenager thinks the world revolves around them, I guess that isn't always the case.

bubbles wrote:

Yes, I never said he abused his cats, it just perplexes me when people claim he was really fond of his cats yet he was too lazy/self-involved to (presumably) even feed them. I think teenagers are old enough to be able to be trusted to care for a pet. I mean, he had his driver's license. If he was to be trusted on the road, surely he was capable of caring for a pet, especially for a short amount of time? But when a teenager thinks the world revolves around them, I guess that isn't always the case.

That was Eric, not Dylan. Eric was very fond of his dog and involved in taking care of him and stayed home from work when the dog was sick. With the cats, I'm not even sure they were Dylan's. I think they belonged to his Mom. That also makes me wonder, what ever happened with Eric's dog? Does anyone know. I mean, obviously the dog most likely isn't still living all these years later but did it ever get better the time Eric was upset about or did he end up having to put the dog down?

Yeah, I know Eric was fond of his dog, but I was referring to the comments I've seen from people saying that Dylan really cared for his cats.

ThoughtBox wrote:

A quick search on Google Scholar gets 798 hits when "Harris Klebold animal abuse" is searched. Many of these articles mention things such as "Harris and Klebold often bragged to friends about mutilating animals" and one research article about adolescent shooters and animal abuse contends that:

Harris, 18 years old, and Dylan Klebold, Colorado; killed 12 classmates
and one teacher before killing themselves; Harris enjoyed smashing the heads
of mice with a crowbar and setting them on fire; Klebold shot woodpeckers  (Muscari, 2004)

I think I already know the answer to my question, but is there ANY evidence, any at all that suggests that either participated in animal abuse or in even bragging about it to friends? I feel we would have heard about this if it true; I thought both boys loved their respective pets.

Where would this notion come from that researchers would make blatantly false accusations, just so that the boys would fit the pigeon-holed description of what they want a young murderer to be?

Yea I think it is exactly that. They want E&D to fit the mold of murderers so they say they abused animals. There is no proof to any of it and of course E&D aren't here to defend themselves so it is easy to pass it off as a true statement.

There are a ton of things I have learned lately that I thought were facts but they turned out to be false. It just makes it all the more interesting to me!

Jenn wrote:

Back a loooong time ago when the forum was only 2 weeks old, we talked about this a little bit. Here is a thread and article you may be interested in, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. It's always a good thing to bring up topics again from time to time to get new perspectives and opinions, but you may be interested in what others back then had to say. For the most part, I think everyone is in agreement that Dylan and Eric did not torture animals.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And we discussed it again a little over 2 years ago in this thread.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] !

At least one of the cats was Dylan's as Sue mentions in her book that he picked it out: "Rocky was Dylan’s cat. He’d chosen him from a neighbor’s litter of kittens when he was in third grade." I don't think he purposefully didn't feed the cats. As Jenn said, things like that happen (unfortunately) when you're caught up in the daily routines.

They both seem more like misanthropes who hated people rather than psychopaths who felt indifferent to all living things. And Eric seemed to identify more with animals than people, since he felt so strongly about his dog and he mentions how humans should be annihilated from the planet so it can be given back to the animals.  But of course, we don't really know how serious we should take that since his journal was just a bunch of rambling contradictions.

carrie12 wrote:

At least one of the cats was Dylan's as Sue mentions in her book that he picked it out: "Rocky was Dylan’s cat. He’d chosen him from a neighbor’s litter of kittens when he was in third grade." I don't think he purposefully didn't feed the cats. As Jenn said, things like that happen (unfortunately) when you're caught up in the daily routines.

I think my point keeps getting missed. I never said Dylan was an animal abuser or that he even made the conscious decision to not feed the cats. I was making a point of saying he wasn't overly-concerned about them and was so wrapped up in his own BS that he tended to forget about others, as Sue even mentioned to Dylan. I mean, what he ended up doing was the ultimate act of selfishness. Taking innocent lives and turning his victim's families and his own family's lives into hell, just because (to loosely quote his journal) "nothing but my happiness will matter".

bubbles wrote:

carrie12 wrote:

At least one of the cats was Dylan's as Sue mentions in her book that he picked it out: "Rocky was Dylan’s cat. He’d chosen him from a neighbor’s litter of kittens when he was in third grade." I don't think he purposefully didn't feed the cats. As Jenn said, things like that happen (unfortunately) when you're caught up in the daily routines.

I think my point keeps getting missed. I never said Dylan was an animal abuser or that he even made the conscious decision to not feed the cats. I was making a point of saying he wasn't overly-concerned about them and was so wrapped up in his own BS that he tended to forget about others, as Sue even mentioned to Dylan. I mean, what he ended up doing was the ultimate act of selfishness. Taking innocent lives and turning his victim's families and his own family's lives into hell, just because (to loosely quote his journal) "nothing but my happiness will matter".

I don't think anyone was saying that you were implying or saying Dylan was an animal abuser. I think pretty much all of us have come to the conclusion that neither of the boys were. And I agree with you, actually. You're right, Dylan wasn't all too concerned about what he was going to do and how it would affect his family. So it is not unlikely at all that he wouldn't care about the needs of his cats. I understand what you're saying and I agree.

However, I was just adding my own thoughts that Dylan was a teenage boy and if taking care of the cats was something he was not used to doing, that he could have just unintentionally forgotten (as teenagers and sometimes even adults do - such as myself, someone who has always had multiple cats since the age of 19 and sometimes it still slips my mind whether or not I've taken care of all my cat chores). My cats are very much apart of my daily life and there has been times I've run out the door and then thought to myself later 'Damn, did I give the cats fresh water? Did I fill up the food bowls?' All I am saying, is it could be something as simple as that as to why Dylan didn't take care of his cats. I do understand what you are saying and it makes perfect sense, but as a cat owner myself, I was just adding my own thoughts about it.

Oh yeah for sure, I get where you're coming from, sometimes people make genuine mistakes when they're particularly busy or even when something just slips their mind. I just thought that it was more probable that Dylan didn't look after the cats like Sue had requested due to his noted tendency to be self-absorbed as opposed to having a hectic schedule or making an uncharacteristic mistake of forgetting to feed them.