Thank God Puppies Can Swim...

So I was flipping through the channels and I came upon the very beginning of Little House On The Prairie...I used to watch this show religiously when I was little...now I only see it once in a while.  Strange how I can remember each episode after just seconds of the beginning of the show....
There were puppies, fluffy white puppies, with their mother (who by the way looked NOTHING like the pups).  And then in to the barn comes a man, a  tall dark figure (queue ominous music), and he kneels down to the dogs and he has a sack. A brown canvas sack.  He proceeds to put the pups in the sack.  The pups whimpering the entire time.  The hair on the back of my neck is now standing on end and my whole body begins to burn with sickness.  I have to keep telling myself "it's fake, Ang...it's FAKE!"  And still I'm riveted and couldn't stop watching.  He puts them in the back of his wagon and leaves for what I can only imagine, is a water source.  Cut to Laura and Mary racing to a pond.  The same pond, in fact, that the evil, nasty, puppy-drowning man is arriving at.  Laura hears the pups and inquires about what he's doing and he threatens them saying he'll "stick them" if they don't go away. (Ya know beat them with a stick.) The girls leave but don't go far...he throws the sack of puppies into the pond.  I got shivers...I'm right there, waiting for him to leave because, dammit! I'm going to save those puppies myself! Cut to Laura and Mary jetting out of the woods and diving in the pond...they retrieve the sack and they pull out three, albeit water-logged, puppies and they are all alive.  They have a slight scare when the believe the rock the man put inside the sack to make it sink, is a pup, that has not survived.  I was so relieved. 
I write this because I've noticed over the years that I've gotten really sensitive to issues of animal abuse...specifically cats and dogs and the disgusting cruel things people inflict on them.  I wonder, "what the fuck goes through their mind? How the hell do they justify hurting a poor defenseless animal? Do they have no conscience at all???"  It just makes me physically ill when the news is on and there are cases of animal abuse or mutilation or whatever....  I do EVERYTHING in my power to resurrect animals (strays) from the dead and there are others out there undoing all the good I've tried to do.  WTF? 
My pets bring me such joy.  Such unconditional love.  It doesn't matter to them what clothes I wear, if I have a job or not, if I'm sick or well, if I'm wearing makeup or not....they don't care if 2 seconds earlier I was infuriated by them misbehaving and I've yelled at them...they still cuddle up to me and purr and roll on their backs to let me scratch their tummies...HOW can anyone hurt such a being???
Look at me...I've gone all PETA on you!  I just love my furry children I guess. :o)