Animal rights and the welfare of animals is a big concern in today’s world.  There are many different organizations in affect that try to promote awareness of how animals should be treated, while also trying to gain funding and help for animals that have been taken out of situations that were not good for the animals.  Groups like these use images and visual texts to get sympathy and hit the soft spot in people’s hearts. The visual text of the puppy in chains is used to capture an audience to speak for a certain cause through it’s emotional appeal, in this example; Animal treatment and rights is the message.

The visual text of the puppy in chains depicts a puppy on a dirt floor, with a massive chain tightened around his neck.  The text uses key elements that connect with the reader to get the point across.  There is a puppy.  Puppies to most people are a sign of happiness and joy.  They are cute, cuddly creatures that no one could ever imagine hurting.  A puppy is a symbol of innocence and can always put a smile on someone’s face.  The text also has chains.  Oversized chains, wrapped around the neck of this tiny little puppy’s neck.  Chains are restraining, choking, and even hurting a puppy. The use of these two symbols in a visual text, along with the look on the puppy’s face, the text depicts a hopeless, lost, puppy in need of help.  This is exactly how the visual text is meant to be read.  Symbols like these are used in order to help support a cause or simply to bring awareness to a situation that needs help. 

Visual text like this are directed solely at the human’s natural instinct of being compassionate towards animals and their reaction to help and take care of the situation.  Visual text tends to be directed at emotion.  Depending on what the picture is of, it changes what type of emotions they are trying to hit.  This image, the sad puppy chained up, is directed to hit our emotions, and hit them hard.  The sadness in a puppy’s eye will trigger and emotion in any reads who have any compassionate bone in their body.  Images like these are sent out and used as propaganda in order to raise awareness, and without the ability to connect with emotions, these pictures would not be able to sell anything.  The use of visual texts like these rely on their ability to hit a soft spot in the reader.

From a personal standpoint, this visual text is directed at anyone with a heart, but mainly animal people.  There are some people who just think puppies are cute.  There are some people who think all animals are disgusting and would have nothing to do with them.  Then there are the people to whom this visual text is supposed to hit the hardest, and those are people like my mom who would do whatever it takes in order to save any type of animal.  People like this are the people that are being targeted with this type of visual text.  Watching commercials or videos, or seeing a poster with the same type of visual text will trigger a feeling of wanting to help, and this is what they go after. People with that feeling. Nonprofits like the ASPCA use images and visual texts like these solely to convey a message for their bigger cause of animal abuse and neglect and the helping of these animals.  

Visual texts such as this puppy are directed in order to spread awareness to their cause, and to bring in funding for their organizations.  If this were not the case and the puppy was not chained and on a dirt floor, with a sad puppy face, then there could be a much different way to interpret such visual text.  Imagine if the puppy was sitting in the dirt with a chain bigger than it around its neck.  Imagine a puppy without any of that.  Replace the chain with a nice brand new dog toy.  Replace the dirt with a dog bed.  Imagine the puppy with a wagging tail and not a sad face.  Without all of the key symbols the entire visual text would function in a different manner.  The way that the picture is now, shows a dog suffering and in need of help.  If you stage the puppy in a different manner the entire context goes from helping a suffering puppy and changed to maybe a puppy in need of adoption, or an animal that they have successfully saved.  

Visual texts like this puppy are thrown around all over the internet and television by many different nonprofit groups and organizations to win over the views with the picture’s emotional appeal.  The dirt, the dog, the chain, all of which are examples of things that are “emotionally appealing” or can trigger a nerve in the viewers.  Another component from this visual text is the dog’s face.  The puppy dog face is a term used in today’s language describing a face or look given that means a cute, sad, or innocent face.  This visual text is literally using the puppy dog face to capture an audience.  The way the eye’s look back at you makes you sympathize with the dog, resulting in the success of the visual text.

In conclusion, visual aids or visual texts can be very important in conveying a message or argument. The picture could show one thing but actually convey something very different depending on what the images are representing or the context of the picture. In the instance of the picture I have chosen, the image is supposed to be evoking emotions to feel sad for the puppy and wanting people to either donate or adopt. However, in other context or circumstances a puppy could represent or convey very different emotions, those of happiness and joy. Sometimes having regular text in and of itself just is not enough. People like pictures because it is something to actually look at and makes a situation more real to the audience.  