jumping in on this for this comment, but that's part of what makes animal abuse so heinous. killing them for food is one thing, but beating them just to beat them or because a person is a negligent personality makes it worse, because the animal is doing what it knows to do and it's getting abused because of it. there's no training for that and there's no way they can know that this person they've wound up with isn't going to be anything other than abusive towards them. that's all they know and it makes it shitty because they don't do anything to deserve it other than exist.

and tbh, the kind of people that callously abuse animals aren't far off from doing the same to people, if they haven't already. it's why animal cruelty is a warning sign for sociopathic mental disorders.