Animal cruelty

Just thinking about this makes me feel sick and angry. I myself have a dog- a Japanese Akita- who is fussed too much and treated better by my parents than I am (slight exaggeration). The thought of her getting abuse and hit I cannot imagine, but in some cases obviously this does happen. I remember a while back when I read in the paper about how a man was verbally and occasionally physically assaulting his partner, so she brought him a puppy to try to soften him (stupid idea really) however following one of his tempers he took a hammer and hit the puppy over the head with it, and left it to slowly die an unimaginable death. How can anyone do that to such an innocent, harmless puppy? What I struggle to accept is that people, sick people, are capable of this cruelty. Another example was in September 2008 when a horse was shot dead in a field in Surrey. This is just pointless cruelty that has no point or purpose. The person who shot the horse should be shot themselves!