“... in times past it was worse”.
I agree with you, brytlea. My parents were born and raised in a small, coal mining town in Pennsylvania. When they were young (and even adults), people would commonly take newborn kittens and puppies, put them in a bag with a rock and throw them in the creek. My Mom use to tell us how horrible it was if a person had forgotten the rock... many a time, she saw a bag floating down with mewing kittens or crying puppies. Once a year, the local cop would go around town and shoot any stray cats or dogs. He would literally spend the entire day doing it to “cull” the unwanted. No wonder at all that my parents always had pets, many being found or unwanted.
I think we have a far different view these days. Perhaps we have gone overboard in some ways (the vegan craze and I mean the ones who think NO ONE should eat anything that had a face and would like to legislate it etc).
But we are far less cruel and even in our uses of animals for the most part we are concerned about their well being.
I try not to judge people out of their time, since people are a result of how they were raised and the culture around them, but all of that sounds pretty darned bad.