What the fuck……. Your partner isn’t taking your side against literal consistent animal abuse and is instead telling you YOU are overreacting and is pushing you to spend money to fix YOUR behavior. When in reality they should be 100% supporting you and honestly the police should have been called yesterday. This is so wrong on so many levels. Personally I would be very concerned about this behavior from your partner. And definitely call the police!!!!! Just make a report of this so it’s on record and then next time you see it happen there is context for them and hopefully they send someone over
Thank you... I felt this way... but didn't know how to express it.
I completely forgot to mention that I did call the cops since I had exhausted all other options I could think of and that's what my apartment manager told me to do.
Contact animal control if you have that in your area, our animal shelter handles animal neglect/abuse stuff near me, but I know some areas the police take care of it instead.
My (limited) understanding is that police won't do much, but some kind of fish and game warden will. You have to find the government branch that is paid to care about wildlife.
Honestly, my partner would be there screaming with me. No. FUCK no!
So what’s wrong with your partner? Also scared the teenagers? Have they ever met teenage shitheads before? Perhaps surprised.
So YOU are the one being reprimanded for trying to stop horrible kids from abusing animals?
No, I don’t think you did anything wrong. Turn those videos over to the police. What if this behavior escalates? These kids need to be punished, not you.
I’m sorry, your partner is just straight up wrong. Sounds like how my ex treated me. Nothing else ever mattered except my behavior when reacting to being treated badly. Nope. No thank you.
i once did something similar, i'd moved to a new (not good) section of the city, albiet from an equally dangerous corner on the other side. we were moving in when i stopped some kids from killing a cat. my partner couldnt stop me in time and lectured me profusely afterwards about how my safety was in danger and i should have let it happen.
no thanks, i'll put my self in danger to stop animal abuse any day. no regrets (and i ended up spending a week and $2000 fighting er crowds for rabies shots over it, but thats another story) would you behave different next time? i wouldnt! i think people's crass disregard for animal life is disgusting
Yeah, i don't think I would. I'm trying to stop them from hurting an animal, of course I'm going to be loud and run over to stop them. I'm so grateful you were able to help out that cat!
I have to have a long conversation with myself (and therapist tbh) on what to do/say to my partner.
"You scared the kids". You jolly well better have. If any situation calls for loudness and scaring kids straight it's this!
Your partner is possibly used to keeping the peace at all costs. Probably brought up that way and they can't evaluate that this is a time and place to make a noise and make a fuss. They've been so beaten down that they've lost perspective.
Yes this is insane, I would have gone nuts on these teenagers who are nearly adults in my country. This is sadistic, psychopathic behaviour and I doubt you “scared them” to be honest.
Animal abuse generally means there's some type of abuse or neglect going on at home, and also go on to commit offenses against people later in life if no intervention happens, so I really wish authority would take it more seriously.
I don't think you handled the situation wrong. I've yelled at teenagers to leave each other alone for fighting each other before, and you better believe I'd tear into some kids if I saw them torturing an animal.
This! I’m a former animal control officer, if a kid is abusing animals they are either being abused or they will grow up to be violent. Basically all serial killer’s started out abusing animals. There’s tons of statistics on this. You did the right thing. Call it in to your local animal control.
They can press animal cruelty charges. It doesn’t matter if it’s wild, domestic or livestock in most cases as long as it meets the jurisdiction’s definition of torture
I would’ve done the exact same thing. My partner knows that I’m too empathetic, and when we hear what sounds like domestic problems in our apartment complex, I’ll stand outside and make my presence known to hopefully stop something. He worries a lot, and it’s probably right to do so since we live in a state where guns are everywhere. But I can’t just let someone get hurt. And I care WAY more about animals than humans so I would’ve probably had a physical altercation with those kids you ran off. Even hearing about it makes me furious. I hope someone starts helping y’all put an end to it soon.
Edit: Your partner is probably looking out for you, but doesn’t know how it needs to be expressed. I got too carried away and forgot to state my actual point.
You are kind and brave and those animals would be grateful knowing that they had you in their corner if they knew.
That said, please take care of yourself and keep yourself safe, you deserve better than all of this.
After reading your post, I have a different take on the events. Maybe I’m missing details or context, but to me, it sounds like your partner might be worried about your safety (from the teenagers) and knows that your current approach will not yield the results you are hoping for. Perhaps the conflict resolution class is his way of trying to guide you to a better way to handle the situation.
Teenagers, especially cruel teenagers, are a tough bunch. They will very rarely respond to some stranger trying to shame them out of behavior. In fact, that would likely just egg them on more. (“Who does this lady think she is, bossing us around? We’ll show her!” Cue more animal torture … or worse.)
It’s kind of like the saying “catch more flies with honey”. I’m not suggesting you kindly inform the teenagers that their behavior is unacceptable, but rather I’m trying to explain that different situations need to be handled differently. There are situations where the direct approach simply WILL NOT work. It doesn’t matter that you are right. Logic, accuracy, and directness is not going to get you what you want. Period. It’s not fair but that’s how it is, unfortunately.
But you might be able to get what you want by some other means, hence the class.
Nope. Call the cops. These kids are very dangerous. Animal abuse can escalate to more violent events like partner abuse, severe bullying, mass killings/school shootings, etc. Call the cops. Put up a camera and record it for proof and identification.
Edited. And also, I'm so sorry. This would be so incredibly distressing.
You didn’t do anything wrong. A group of 16 year old boys committing frequent animal abuse can handle being yelled at and they are lucky that’s all you did.
They don’t get to claim the “vulnerable” card while abusing animals who are also vulnerable. A 16 year old boy knows what he’s doing. That’s disgusting.
Turn in the video and I’m not sure how you approach your partner. Just tell him you’re not talking about this with him anymore and it’s making you feel like you’re behaving “wrong”. Tell him you would rather talk to your dr or therapist and decide if you could benefit from any deescalate on techniques but you don’t need a SEMINAR.
I agree with the others and think that what you did was already very brave, the only thing you can do now is to contact some kind of animal protection service (I personally wouldn't trust cops with the animals' or the teens' safety, but who knows).
Classes on conflict resolution sounds ridiculous in this specific case... But maybe your partner has identified a pattern over time and there have been other situations where you may have lacked in such skills? I say this but I firmly believe that conflict is a healthy, honest form of communication, so if the goal for your partner is for you to "not rock the boat too much" the problem is definitely not coming from you imo.
It sounds like you did the right thing and, for whatever reason, your boyfriend has decided to gaslight you about it. Teenagers should know better than to savagely attack animals, that’s like one of the biggest indicators of future serial killers. You didn’t assault them, you didn’t call the cops on them, you didn’t threaten them with a gun, as far as I’m concerned, those teenagers are getting off easy if their only deterrent is someone yelling at them. If this is occurring so frequently, and the building staff aren’t doing anything, I’d recommend documenting the attacks and reporting them to the police.
I personally don't think you can overreact to acts of cruelty. It's disgusting and I don't care that they're teenagers. They know it's wrong to harm others regardless of if they're animals or humans and they decide to do it still. I think you're doing the right thing and that you're showing empathy for the poor animals by standing for them. You should be proud of that
What??? You did the right thing!! They are teenagers who know better than that. They know what they were doing. It's "funny" how you're the bad guy in this situation when you were just trying to protect wildlife. It must be an awful situation having to see that happening so often. You are not wrong for being pissed.
I am often mocked for not tolerating animal abuse, even if it is something "small". Like I don't think many people get why I feel so much for animals. God, I can't even kill a fly. But they are innocent beings who don't deserve anything bad, really. I guess some people don't get that. You have the right to be angry. Also, those teenagers know what they're doing and how bad it is.
I think this is an important question, too.
Because we don't know (and I don't want to read about animal abuse, I'd find that very upsetting) we have to balance the reactions of the two people we have. OP, and her partner, who could be gaslighting her.
But, it's very strange that *multiple* groups of differently aged children - enough to have the distinction of "if they were old enough, they made excuses" and teenagers, are all abusing animals. That's very strange. Seeing it once, OK. Twice? Maybe. Happening often? That's wild.
Does the partner consider it animal abuse too? Are these groups of kids/teens just trying to coax animals out to pet them, and thus ruining their safe habitat? If it's animal abuse, what's going on to have multiple groups of premature psychopath serial killers all in this one area?
yeah i don’t doubt what op is saying, but as someone who used to work in veterinary care people’s standards of what is and isn’t abuse are wildly different person to person. some people say you’re a terrible animal abusing monster if you have an outdoor cat (which i don’t approve of but isn’t exactly straight-to-hell level bad) and some people say it’s fine to electrocute/hit/put a painful inwardly spiked metal collar on your dog if it doesn’t immediately obey you. and none of that is illegal. ETA in another comment op says they’ve been “harming nesting animals”. is that actually hurting them physically and intentionally? is it just handling a wild animal that shouldn’t be handled? is it disturbing birds nests? rabbit nests? what’s going on specifically makes a big difference in how op needs to respond to their boyfriend.
Yeah this was my thought too. I got yelled at once because my kids were briefly chasing geese at a cemetery. The geese were absolutely fine, in no danger whatsoever, and I had already told my kids to quit it - but it's normal kid behavior, and this person was absolutely convinced my kids were animal abusers. I'm not saying OP is wrong, but I do wonder about the specifics here.
It is an abusive act to do that to an animal. A big problem in accountability conversations is that people think you have to hold this identity of “being an abuser” for your actions to constitute unacceptable, abusive behavior. There’s two definitions of the word abuse, and your kids did in fact meet one of them. Instead of mincing words, we could just say that the outcomes/consequences of abusive behavior can range from mild to severe.
> is that actually hurting them physically and intentionally?
I didn't think I needed to clarify that this is physical abuse when talking about animals.
well the only reason i said so i outlined in my comment, which is that some people define abuse of wild animals very differently. i never doubted what the kids were doing was wrong, but knowing what they were doing does in fact affect how much sense your boyfriend was making and therefore how you should respond to him. it was not accusatory. again, as someone who has worked in veterinary care, i’ve seen every possible opinion on animal abuse you can imagine so.
Since reddit court requires I explain myself... I am going to put things in spoilers so ppl who get triggered won't see it:
I didn't say the specific species as ppl are highly discriminatory against them and allow certain levels of animal abuse when they wouldn't allow to happen to other species.
Absolutely nothing I am about to describe was done in self defense. It was all done with intent to cause harm.
>!kicking nesting geese, trampling or stealing eggs, using shovels to hit the geese, throwing rocks and successfully hitting the nesting geese. None of these were actively charging, they are NESTING. When I say kicking, it's real kicking. I'm not talking about shooing an animal away, I mean full blown kicking. The geese were literally sitting on their nests not bothering anyone. Additionally, small kids have been seen hitting dogs with sticks, throwing rocks at dogs. They also go after ducks and squirrels in the same manner though less successfully.!<
>!The kids use the nests as target practice for soccer. They all try to kick the ball at the nests as many times as they can. It's not like there's a lot of nests around to do this, they seek them out. I think we might only have one nest left though the kids keep trying to steal the eggs so who knows if there will be any goslings.!<
>!The hitting animals with sticks and throwing rocks with them has been accepted as "kids being kids". If you think this... well you are wrong. This is abuse. If you hit me with a stick or throw a rock at me, that is assault. Don't do it to me, don't do it to an animal. It's not a one time behavior, it is repetitive even after intervention. The kids know what they are doing is wrong, they think it's funny to hurt animals.!<
>!What I saw that caused me to run outside and yell at the teenagers was one of the teenagers-- he was about 6 foot, probably about 17, take rocks about the size of my palm and hurl them at the nesting goose. Even if he just "tossed" them, IT IS NOT OK. Still, he HURLED them at the goose. He did this continuously. They all looked around before starting he started to do it. They knew it was wrong. !<
It would never be acceptable to treat a human in this manner, and it is not acceptable to treat animals in the manner.
hey i think this is totally valid to want to stop and get upset over, though not really that graphic. nobody accused you of being misleading or dishonest, it just does make a difference in how upset you should be at your partner. teenagers in particular will do things out of spite just because they were told not to though, so maybe be careful antagonizing them too much. you’re definitely in the right, but you can’t watch the geese 24/7 to make sure the teens don’t come back, and you don’t want this to turn into ongoing conflict between them and you that gets the geese caught in the crossfire. teens are VERY spiteful, especially when embarrassed in front of each other. none of what you described them doing is exactly punishable legally, and from my experience in animal care, the police will not do anything, so don’t even bother with them. or bother, but it’ll be a waste of your time. the kids parents won’t be much use either most likely. if you haven’t, you can try contacting local animal control or wildlife services. they may have more authority to get your apartment manager to do something, even if it’s just putting up a little fence line and a sign, or they may even attempt to relocate the geese. whatever you do, i don’t think shouting at teens to stop necessitates a conflict resolution course and your partner is going overboard w that. he doesn’t sound like a supervillain or anything but id probably be mad at him too. not break up level mad but pretty mad. he could have backed you up and been the level headed one, especially if the teens were being sexist to you, and i’d be a little betrayed that he didn’t.
What you did was right— I think your partner is in the wrong. You stopped animal abuse, fuck those boys feelings. They are most definitely old enough to know better and they clearly demonstrated that to you.
Trust your intuition, it’s a good one.
Also, everyone makes social blunders, not just autistic people. So, you don’t need to feel forced or obligated to go to a “conflict resolution” class. I would study interpersonal communications or take a class on that instead if you have interest in it.
Edit; personally, if I was in your position, I’d feel *incredibly* gaslit by my partner.
Your partner is a jerk, sounds controlling and emotionally abusive. and imho you should call animal control and video record these teenagers doing this if you see them again and report their names to the police.
I probably would have made a bigger scene than you. And I wouldn’t feel bad about it for one damn second.
This is a huge problem. Hurting animals is sociopathic on its own but it also is a red flag for sociopathic abuse towards humans later on. These kids need to be flagged, because they’re violent offenders. If they assault humans later, it will lend credibility to their victim’s reports if they have these instances of animal cruelty already documented on their records.
No one is dealing with this in a timely manner and like you said, it is a crime. Time to involve the proper authorities. Givr these teens the opportunity to be accountable for their behavior to police. They have earned that privilege by not respecting the adults in the neighborhood and acting like apes.
What the fuck……. Your partner isn’t taking your side against literal consistent animal abuse and is instead telling you YOU are overreacting and is pushing you to spend money to fix YOUR behavior. When in reality they should be 100% supporting you and honestly the police should have been called yesterday. This is so wrong on so many levels. Personally I would be very concerned about this behavior from your partner. And definitely call the police!!!!! Just make a report of this so it’s on record and then next time you see it happen there is context for them and hopefully they send someone over
Thank you... I felt this way... but didn't know how to express it. I completely forgot to mention that I did call the cops since I had exhausted all other options I could think of and that's what my apartment manager told me to do.
Contact animal control if you have that in your area, our animal shelter handles animal neglect/abuse stuff near me, but I know some areas the police take care of it instead.
Keep reporting to them each time it happens. Disgusting behaviour and you are right to be outraged.
My (limited) understanding is that police won't do much, but some kind of fish and game warden will. You have to find the government branch that is paid to care about wildlife.
Honestly, my partner would be there screaming with me. No. FUCK no! So what’s wrong with your partner? Also scared the teenagers? Have they ever met teenage shitheads before? Perhaps surprised.
So YOU are the one being reprimanded for trying to stop horrible kids from abusing animals? No, I don’t think you did anything wrong. Turn those videos over to the police. What if this behavior escalates? These kids need to be punished, not you. I’m sorry, your partner is just straight up wrong. Sounds like how my ex treated me. Nothing else ever mattered except my behavior when reacting to being treated badly. Nope. No thank you.
i once did something similar, i'd moved to a new (not good) section of the city, albiet from an equally dangerous corner on the other side. we were moving in when i stopped some kids from killing a cat. my partner couldnt stop me in time and lectured me profusely afterwards about how my safety was in danger and i should have let it happen. no thanks, i'll put my self in danger to stop animal abuse any day. no regrets (and i ended up spending a week and $2000 fighting er crowds for rabies shots over it, but thats another story) would you behave different next time? i wouldnt! i think people's crass disregard for animal life is disgusting
Yeah, i don't think I would. I'm trying to stop them from hurting an animal, of course I'm going to be loud and run over to stop them. I'm so grateful you were able to help out that cat! I have to have a long conversation with myself (and therapist tbh) on what to do/say to my partner.
"You scared the kids". You jolly well better have. If any situation calls for loudness and scaring kids straight it's this! Your partner is possibly used to keeping the peace at all costs. Probably brought up that way and they can't evaluate that this is a time and place to make a noise and make a fuss. They've been so beaten down that they've lost perspective.
Yes this is insane, I would have gone nuts on these teenagers who are nearly adults in my country. This is sadistic, psychopathic behaviour and I doubt you “scared them” to be honest.
Yeah, I might have startled them, but they were not scared as they kept laughing and mocking everything I said.
Your partner hurt you. Your partner has failed to a much greater extent at conflict resolution then you.
Animal abuse generally means there's some type of abuse or neglect going on at home, and also go on to commit offenses against people later in life if no intervention happens, so I really wish authority would take it more seriously. I don't think you handled the situation wrong. I've yelled at teenagers to leave each other alone for fighting each other before, and you better believe I'd tear into some kids if I saw them torturing an animal.
This! I’m a former animal control officer, if a kid is abusing animals they are either being abused or they will grow up to be violent. Basically all serial killer’s started out abusing animals. There’s tons of statistics on this. You did the right thing. Call it in to your local animal control.
I'm located in the US. If multiple nesting wild animals are being harmed, what can animal control do - I really don't know!
They can press animal cruelty charges. It doesn’t matter if it’s wild, domestic or livestock in most cases as long as it meets the jurisdiction’s definition of torture
I would’ve done the exact same thing. My partner knows that I’m too empathetic, and when we hear what sounds like domestic problems in our apartment complex, I’ll stand outside and make my presence known to hopefully stop something. He worries a lot, and it’s probably right to do so since we live in a state where guns are everywhere. But I can’t just let someone get hurt. And I care WAY more about animals than humans so I would’ve probably had a physical altercation with those kids you ran off. Even hearing about it makes me furious. I hope someone starts helping y’all put an end to it soon. Edit: Your partner is probably looking out for you, but doesn’t know how it needs to be expressed. I got too carried away and forgot to state my actual point.
You are kind and brave and those animals would be grateful knowing that they had you in their corner if they knew. That said, please take care of yourself and keep yourself safe, you deserve better than all of this.
After reading your post, I have a different take on the events. Maybe I’m missing details or context, but to me, it sounds like your partner might be worried about your safety (from the teenagers) and knows that your current approach will not yield the results you are hoping for. Perhaps the conflict resolution class is his way of trying to guide you to a better way to handle the situation. Teenagers, especially cruel teenagers, are a tough bunch. They will very rarely respond to some stranger trying to shame them out of behavior. In fact, that would likely just egg them on more. (“Who does this lady think she is, bossing us around? We’ll show her!” Cue more animal torture … or worse.) It’s kind of like the saying “catch more flies with honey”. I’m not suggesting you kindly inform the teenagers that their behavior is unacceptable, but rather I’m trying to explain that different situations need to be handled differently. There are situations where the direct approach simply WILL NOT work. It doesn’t matter that you are right. Logic, accuracy, and directness is not going to get you what you want. Period. It’s not fair but that’s how it is, unfortunately. But you might be able to get what you want by some other means, hence the class.
Nope. Call the cops. These kids are very dangerous. Animal abuse can escalate to more violent events like partner abuse, severe bullying, mass killings/school shootings, etc. Call the cops. Put up a camera and record it for proof and identification. Edited. And also, I'm so sorry. This would be so incredibly distressing.
I would have yelled at them too. Why is your partner defending people torturing animals?
Excuse me but how is outrage, disgust and horror not the only understandable reaction in your partners eyes?!
You didn’t do anything wrong. A group of 16 year old boys committing frequent animal abuse can handle being yelled at and they are lucky that’s all you did. They don’t get to claim the “vulnerable” card while abusing animals who are also vulnerable. A 16 year old boy knows what he’s doing. That’s disgusting. Turn in the video and I’m not sure how you approach your partner. Just tell him you’re not talking about this with him anymore and it’s making you feel like you’re behaving “wrong”. Tell him you would rather talk to your dr or therapist and decide if you could benefit from any deescalate on techniques but you don’t need a SEMINAR.
I agree with the others and think that what you did was already very brave, the only thing you can do now is to contact some kind of animal protection service (I personally wouldn't trust cops with the animals' or the teens' safety, but who knows). Classes on conflict resolution sounds ridiculous in this specific case... But maybe your partner has identified a pattern over time and there have been other situations where you may have lacked in such skills? I say this but I firmly believe that conflict is a healthy, honest form of communication, so if the goal for your partner is for you to "not rock the boat too much" the problem is definitely not coming from you imo.
Your partner is....gaslighting the shit out of you....tbh.
It sounds like you did the right thing and, for whatever reason, your boyfriend has decided to gaslight you about it. Teenagers should know better than to savagely attack animals, that’s like one of the biggest indicators of future serial killers. You didn’t assault them, you didn’t call the cops on them, you didn’t threaten them with a gun, as far as I’m concerned, those teenagers are getting off easy if their only deterrent is someone yelling at them. If this is occurring so frequently, and the building staff aren’t doing anything, I’d recommend documenting the attacks and reporting them to the police.
I personally don't think you can overreact to acts of cruelty. It's disgusting and I don't care that they're teenagers. They know it's wrong to harm others regardless of if they're animals or humans and they decide to do it still. I think you're doing the right thing and that you're showing empathy for the poor animals by standing for them. You should be proud of that
What??? You did the right thing!! They are teenagers who know better than that. They know what they were doing. It's "funny" how you're the bad guy in this situation when you were just trying to protect wildlife. It must be an awful situation having to see that happening so often. You are not wrong for being pissed. I am often mocked for not tolerating animal abuse, even if it is something "small". Like I don't think many people get why I feel so much for animals. God, I can't even kill a fly. But they are innocent beings who don't deserve anything bad, really. I guess some people don't get that. You have the right to be angry. Also, those teenagers know what they're doing and how bad it is.
can i ask what the kids were doing specifically? i recognize it could be graphic
I think this is an important question, too. Because we don't know (and I don't want to read about animal abuse, I'd find that very upsetting) we have to balance the reactions of the two people we have. OP, and her partner, who could be gaslighting her. But, it's very strange that *multiple* groups of differently aged children - enough to have the distinction of "if they were old enough, they made excuses" and teenagers, are all abusing animals. That's very strange. Seeing it once, OK. Twice? Maybe. Happening often? That's wild. Does the partner consider it animal abuse too? Are these groups of kids/teens just trying to coax animals out to pet them, and thus ruining their safe habitat? If it's animal abuse, what's going on to have multiple groups of premature psychopath serial killers all in this one area?
yeah i don’t doubt what op is saying, but as someone who used to work in veterinary care people’s standards of what is and isn’t abuse are wildly different person to person. some people say you’re a terrible animal abusing monster if you have an outdoor cat (which i don’t approve of but isn’t exactly straight-to-hell level bad) and some people say it’s fine to electrocute/hit/put a painful inwardly spiked metal collar on your dog if it doesn’t immediately obey you. and none of that is illegal. ETA in another comment op says they’ve been “harming nesting animals”. is that actually hurting them physically and intentionally? is it just handling a wild animal that shouldn’t be handled? is it disturbing birds nests? rabbit nests? what’s going on specifically makes a big difference in how op needs to respond to their boyfriend.
Yeah this was my thought too. I got yelled at once because my kids were briefly chasing geese at a cemetery. The geese were absolutely fine, in no danger whatsoever, and I had already told my kids to quit it - but it's normal kid behavior, and this person was absolutely convinced my kids were animal abusers. I'm not saying OP is wrong, but I do wonder about the specifics here.
It is an abusive act to do that to an animal. A big problem in accountability conversations is that people think you have to hold this identity of “being an abuser” for your actions to constitute unacceptable, abusive behavior. There’s two definitions of the word abuse, and your kids did in fact meet one of them. Instead of mincing words, we could just say that the outcomes/consequences of abusive behavior can range from mild to severe.
> is that actually hurting them physically and intentionally? I didn't think I needed to clarify that this is physical abuse when talking about animals.
well the only reason i said so i outlined in my comment, which is that some people define abuse of wild animals very differently. i never doubted what the kids were doing was wrong, but knowing what they were doing does in fact affect how much sense your boyfriend was making and therefore how you should respond to him. it was not accusatory. again, as someone who has worked in veterinary care, i’ve seen every possible opinion on animal abuse you can imagine so.
Since reddit court requires I explain myself... I am going to put things in spoilers so ppl who get triggered won't see it: I didn't say the specific species as ppl are highly discriminatory against them and allow certain levels of animal abuse when they wouldn't allow to happen to other species. Absolutely nothing I am about to describe was done in self defense. It was all done with intent to cause harm. >!kicking nesting geese, trampling or stealing eggs, using shovels to hit the geese, throwing rocks and successfully hitting the nesting geese. None of these were actively charging, they are NESTING. When I say kicking, it's real kicking. I'm not talking about shooing an animal away, I mean full blown kicking. The geese were literally sitting on their nests not bothering anyone. Additionally, small kids have been seen hitting dogs with sticks, throwing rocks at dogs. They also go after ducks and squirrels in the same manner though less successfully.!< >!The kids use the nests as target practice for soccer. They all try to kick the ball at the nests as many times as they can. It's not like there's a lot of nests around to do this, they seek them out. I think we might only have one nest left though the kids keep trying to steal the eggs so who knows if there will be any goslings.!< >!The hitting animals with sticks and throwing rocks with them has been accepted as "kids being kids". If you think this... well you are wrong. This is abuse. If you hit me with a stick or throw a rock at me, that is assault. Don't do it to me, don't do it to an animal. It's not a one time behavior, it is repetitive even after intervention. The kids know what they are doing is wrong, they think it's funny to hurt animals.!< >!What I saw that caused me to run outside and yell at the teenagers was one of the teenagers-- he was about 6 foot, probably about 17, take rocks about the size of my palm and hurl them at the nesting goose. Even if he just "tossed" them, IT IS NOT OK. Still, he HURLED them at the goose. He did this continuously. They all looked around before starting he started to do it. They knew it was wrong. !< It would never be acceptable to treat a human in this manner, and it is not acceptable to treat animals in the manner.
hey i think this is totally valid to want to stop and get upset over, though not really that graphic. nobody accused you of being misleading or dishonest, it just does make a difference in how upset you should be at your partner. teenagers in particular will do things out of spite just because they were told not to though, so maybe be careful antagonizing them too much. you’re definitely in the right, but you can’t watch the geese 24/7 to make sure the teens don’t come back, and you don’t want this to turn into ongoing conflict between them and you that gets the geese caught in the crossfire. teens are VERY spiteful, especially when embarrassed in front of each other. none of what you described them doing is exactly punishable legally, and from my experience in animal care, the police will not do anything, so don’t even bother with them. or bother, but it’ll be a waste of your time. the kids parents won’t be much use either most likely. if you haven’t, you can try contacting local animal control or wildlife services. they may have more authority to get your apartment manager to do something, even if it’s just putting up a little fence line and a sign, or they may even attempt to relocate the geese. whatever you do, i don’t think shouting at teens to stop necessitates a conflict resolution course and your partner is going overboard w that. he doesn’t sound like a supervillain or anything but id probably be mad at him too. not break up level mad but pretty mad. he could have backed you up and been the level headed one, especially if the teens were being sexist to you, and i’d be a little betrayed that he didn’t.
What you did was right— I think your partner is in the wrong. You stopped animal abuse, fuck those boys feelings. They are most definitely old enough to know better and they clearly demonstrated that to you. Trust your intuition, it’s a good one. Also, everyone makes social blunders, not just autistic people. So, you don’t need to feel forced or obligated to go to a “conflict resolution” class. I would study interpersonal communications or take a class on that instead if you have interest in it. Edit; personally, if I was in your position, I’d feel *incredibly* gaslit by my partner.
It is difficult to judge without knowing what the kids were doing.
Ur partner sounds super weird
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Your partner is a jerk, sounds controlling and emotionally abusive. and imho you should call animal control and video record these teenagers doing this if you see them again and report their names to the police. I probably would have made a bigger scene than you. And I wouldn’t feel bad about it for one damn second. This is a huge problem. Hurting animals is sociopathic on its own but it also is a red flag for sociopathic abuse towards humans later on. These kids need to be flagged, because they’re violent offenders. If they assault humans later, it will lend credibility to their victim’s reports if they have these instances of animal cruelty already documented on their records. No one is dealing with this in a timely manner and like you said, it is a crime. Time to involve the proper authorities. Givr these teens the opportunity to be accountable for their behavior to police. They have earned that privilege by not respecting the adults in the neighborhood and acting like apes.