This article highlights how the development of animal advocacy during the Nineteenth century in Europe is inextricably linked to the growing affirmation of three types of moral concerns that target both human relationships and the treatment of animals. First, the need to limit the violence and visibility of acts resulting in injury, bleeding and mortality. Second, the promotion of a «kind trade» reputed to guarantee the best social order. Finally, the need to care for the weakest and most vulnerable beings, in accordance with the gendered roles that characterize the bourgeois private sphere of that time.