Video analytics are used to evaluate interactions between humans and animals and identify possible occurrences of animal abuse in an objective manner. The video analytics system processes successive video frames to identify objects of interest (e.g., humans, animals, tools/weapons, etc.), creates mathematical models of such objects (e.g., essentially stick-figure models), analyzes movements of such objects (e.g., the speed and/or directional motion of an object or portion of an object such as an arm or leg), determines mathematically and objectively whether or not the analyzed movements meet predetermined criteria for possible abuse (e.g., wherein the predetermined criteria can be mathematical models defining ethical and unethical movements), and outputs relevant information via a user interface (e.g., a list of possible abuse instances identifying the time and probability of possible abuse, from which the user can select an instance in order to view the corresponding video for human analysis).