The video first portrays the nature of psychological and physical child abuse through dramatization and interviews with children and parents who have been involved in abusive situations. Commentators advise that child abuse is a cycle in which children who have been abused tend to become abusers of their own children. The video then discusses the connection between cruelty to pets and abuse within a family. Such a connection is the basis for a Michigan program in which the Michigan Humane Society and social service agencies cooperate in detecting and responding to situations in which child abuse is suspected. Humane Society employees, in responding to allegations of cruelty to animals, often observe signs of the abuse and neglect of children. A New York program of cooperation between animal control agencies and social service agencies enlists abused children to care for and interact with animals and birds, both wild and domestic, who are being rehabilitated. The video is primarily an appeal for cooperation between agencies that deal with the abuse of animals and those that address abuse of children.