This really applies to how a person treats anything (person or animal), that doesn't have the power to fight back.
The person who mis-treats any thing, simply because they can do so without immediate consequences, is lower than whale feces on the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
It happens in a lot of different ways. Some do it to animals. Others do it to children. Some to their supposed loved ones. Still others do it to those subordinate to them at work.
Perpetrators cross political, social, economic and all other demographic lines.
There is a special place in hell for every {=}^#%]ing one of them.