Dejected and terrified, a stray dog whimpers as a man methodically injects her hindquarters with acid. The creature then writhes and shrieks in agony for interminable minutes. The animal is not dead yet when the executioner tosses her sobbing body onto a mass of carcasses. Next, a puppy is injected.

There are more such reports out of Iran. The utter helplessness of dogs pictured in a pit, huddled together whimpering as they try to escape being shot and or buried alive, is disturbing. What kind of a person stands by such scenes, much less creates them?

Even if the guys who injected the dogs with that torture serum were outsourced and paid by the government to get rid of strays, why would they use such a horrendously inhumane method? My guess is that they’ve been steeped in an environment that eschews kindness and specializes in cultivating various types of barbarity. The torture of animals is well known to desensitize people to harming human beings.

This even goes beyond hatred for dogs. It’s a rejection of the idea that there should be any bond of friendship between a dog and a human being, or any bond of human relationship that the rulers do not dictate and control.