Tamira Thayne is the pioneer of the anti-chaining movement in America, and founder and former CEO of Dogs Deserve Better. She is an ordained interfaith minister, an animal activist, an Air Force veteran, an author, and founder of Who Chains You, a publishing and mentoring company for animal advocates beginning January 2016. Click to see author's profile.
When Culpeper County, Virginia student Brynnan Grimes found out she had to skin and cut up a cat as part of a human anatomy class, she took her protest of the antiquated teaching method seriously.
It is my opinion that animal activists who stand against factory farming are among the most courageous people in America. They must brave the light of their own convictions, and stand against ridicule, hatred, and violence toward both the animals and themselves for pointing out the obvious—that animals are living beings and deserving of respect.
As I made clear in the TV interview, “This [cutting up of cats by high school students] engenders a lack of respect for companion animals, and that’s the complete opposite of what we should be telling our students.” My daughter Brynnan further drives home the point in the interview: “We can’t dissect these cats, they are our companions…they are what we love, what we come home to, what we care about.”
Consider what happened in one Oklahoma City classroom as a result of cat dissection in the classroom: “The disturbing footage posted to Facebook shows nine young students from the flagship charter school – which is rated among the best schools in the USA – making the cat corpses ‘dance’ to music in a school laboratory while being ‘conducted’ by another student.”
Whether she silently took part in skinning and dissecting a companion animal—something that would cause her immense psychological pain—or stood against the practice and further alienated herself from the other students, she was facing trauma either way.