@Scott:
I'm not sure if the 7 year old is just a spoiled brat or what, truthfully. I don't really talk to that side of the family. From what I can gather from my niece, she has tried telling the father what 7yr old brat is doing and he just doesn't seem to care. Now hear me out for a moment before getting angry, as this is the best guess I have as to what's going on, because in a way I can relate to my niece's situation (I experienced a bad incident once at around the age of 7, nothing like my niece, but it was still bad in my opinion).
To the standard bird lover, we obviously will view the treatment of this bird as horrifying, and the father a cruel heartless enabler since he doesn't care for the bird's plight. However, most of society aren't bird lovers. Most of society will actually view a bird as a lesser pet, thinking the bird is brainless and not even realizing it has a personality and consciousness of its own. They don't view a bird in the same way as they would a dog or a cat. For instance, one of my brothers will respect the other brother's cats and dogs. However when it came to my birds, he always viewed them as just stupid brainless creatures, and never respected their boundaries like he did to cats/dogs, and would purposely scare them because they're stupid and they're stupid for getting scared and that's why he's proving how stupid they are. ( -_- you have no idea how many fights we got into growing up because of it) So with that in mind, if I were to tell that brother about the treatment of this bird, he wouldn't even care or bat an eye. Whereas now if a cat or dog were to be treated the same exact way, he would get angry. And so thus, I am almost certain that's what's going on with daddy and 7 year old. Daddy doesn't see a bird in the same way he would view a cat or dog, so the bird's plight is meaningless to him. Now take the same situation but make it a cat or dog instead of a bird, and now suddenly he would more than likely discipline his child. It's sad and I don't agree with it in the slightest, but if he can't comprehend that the bird is an intelligent creature with its own personality, can you FULLY blame him? You could argue yes, because torturing any animal in such a way is indeed wrong, but if a person sees it as a brainless waste anyway, they aren't going to think anything of it.
Now I understand there's also a lot of hate towards 7 year old at the moment too. Don't get the wrong idea here, I'm absolutely LIVID about his treatment towards Snowball. However, he is still a child, one who knows no concept of the meaning of life and death. However, he does grasp the concept of pain. He understands fully what pain is, and that he doesn't want it inflicted upon him. So to knowingly go inflicting pain upon another, be it human or animal, he should know by this point is wrong. From what I understand, he doesn't do this to other people, or to their dog. Only the bird. Why? Because daddy won't discipline him for it. Why? Because daddy doesn't view the bird as anything more than a brainless waste of space, so in turn to 7 year old, it's ok that he treats the bird this way, because daddy didn't say it's not ok. Again I'm not trying to make excuses for either person's behavior to the situation, because like I said, I don't agree with what's going on, but I can at least understand why the situation is as bad as it is (sadly). To further clarify this point:
I said earlier I had a bad experience with my birds when I was 7. I owned two parakeets and loved them to death. I had "friends" over one day, and one of the friends brought a relative over (also 7-ish). Showed them the birds, whatever, went about playing in the house after. Come later, that friend's relative is missing. I find him in the room with my birds. He shows me something in his hands and smiles. The horror hit me tenfold. He had pulled out all of both parakeet's tail feathers. I totally freaked, slapped this kid in the face, shoved him to the ground, and started screaming at him for what he had done to my babies. However, I was painted as the villain by all my "friends" for doing this. They didn't, COULDN'T understand how I could possibly be so angry about my birds' tail feathers being ripped out, even though they were my beloved pets. Change the situation to involve a cat or a dog however, if that kid chopped off their tails, he'd be the villain and he would've been properly disciplined. This doesn't excuse his behavior, but it sheds light on how and why it would even happen. And so I understand how my niece feels right now, and I have to give her credit for caring enough about this bird to understand she has to get it away from that situation asap, because things aren't going to change there, and it WILL die in their "care". I'm glad she came to me with this and can properly vent to me about it should she have the need to, because I understand what she's experiencing right now (although not to the same extremes).
