I have a personal testimony of pets undergoing torture at the hands of both adults and children. The culprits in a good number of cases are young school age boys who wouldn't hesitate to maim a pet just for the fun of it. Most of the affected animals are afflicted by neighbours since they have no feelings for the animal. In other situations, a pet say, a dog may inadvertently err but the pet owner assumes that the animal is just being naughty, that it has a sense of right or wrong. I have observed that some adults don't restrain their children thereby reinforcing their troublesome proclivities towards pets.
Yes, this can be a serious issue, particularly when the pet 'owner' is a child who hasn't been taught how to be gentle with animals. This is something that they are capable of learning at quite an early age. But then again, adults are just as much, (if not more) the culprits too, as there is a fine line between pet related humor and pet cruelty with people who just want to create a viral cat or dog video and allow the animal to walk into a potentially dangerous situation. They don't stop the animal, or help the pet avoid the issue. Instead, they stand there and video record it happening. An old video of a cat swinging from a rotating ceiling fan comes to mind here. People need to use a little bit of common sense and realize that if they wouldn't want the event to happen to themselves, then they shouldn't inflict the situation on the family pet. Now, on the other hand, there are pets who act as if they are thoroughly mistreated when they are really spoiled rotten. My cat is a prime example of this, since she firmly believes that torture is when I give her a gentle hug, or pet her for two seconds too long. She doesn't like being held, getting picked up in the first place, tummy rubs that last longer than 1.5 seconds, and is quick to bite if I refuse to follow her 'rules'. Since I'd rather get bitten then let her always have her own way, I guess I practice animal 'cruelty'. Poor itty-bitty little kitty.
When I was growing up, most of the boys in my class liked to capture stray cats, and sometimes pets, in raccoon traps or bear traps. Then they would douse them in gasoline or some other flammable liquid and set them on fire while they were alive. Then they would chase the cat until it died and burned to ashes. This was one of their favorite past times that every boy in town used to do once he was a sixth to eighth grader.
I also knew an old school farmer who used to tie his horses to the back of his truck and force them to run almost fifty miles per hour to wear them out. After he broke their spirit by wearing them out, he would take them for long walks in the pasture to check his cows. It wasn't an uncommon way of dealing with rowdy horses. I always hated watching them do that because I knew they would never go back to being happy healthy horses or horses that would trust humans.