Written by Jeff Mackey
In February, two PETA staffers volunteering with our Community Animal Project's straw-delivery program came upon a malnourished pit bull caged in a Portsmouth, Virginia, backyard, and living in filth.
The pen in which Blackie was kept 24/7 was "wall-to-wall" trash, filth, and feces. There was no food, no drinkable water, and no adequate shelter from the elements. A bucket inside the pen contained disgusting, murky, partially frozen rainwater and algae. The only "shelter" available to Blackie on this cold and rainy day was half of a plastic doghouse turned upside-down. The man who identified himself as the person responsible for Blackie told our volunteers that he was looking to "get rid of the dog"—so we gladly obliged and whisked Blackie away. Blackie was elated to be out of his own waste and happily hopped right into our rescue van. He never looked back.
At PETA's shelter, Blackie enjoyed a heated room, a sofa to lounge on, fresh food and water (which he gobbled up!), and regular walks. He also got—no doubt for the first time ever—a bath. Our veterinarian found Blackie to be 20 percent underweight and suffering from a severe hookworm infestation. After a few days of treatment (and plenty of TLC) at PETA, Blackie—since renamed Jabber—was transferred to the Portsmouth Humane Society. He's gained 11 pounds since his rescue and now awaits adoption.
You'll be glad to know that Jabber's former owner isn't faring nearly so well: After PETA's witnesses testified in court, a judge found the man guilty of cruelty to animals, saying that he found the evidence "shocking" and that it was "no condition to keep a dog in." He was sentenced to pay a $250 fine and spend one month in jail and is also forbidden from owning "pets of any kind" for two years. If he does not maintain good behavior for two years, his sentence will increase to a $500 fine and six months in jail.
Jabber is just one of the many dogs and cats who've had rough starts in life but are now ready for adoption at shelters. If you're looking to add an animal (or two) to your family, please give them the homes they so richly deserve—never buy animals from breeders or pet shops. And if you ever see an animal in distress, please, be ready to help.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Every day, PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) staffers respond to calls about animals who are malnourished, feral, sick, injured, trapped in storm drains, stuck in trees, dying on the side of the road, or kept chained 24/7 365 days a year. Mya and Becky are two formerly chained dogs who were rescued, thanks to PETA.
Mya had nothing more than a crumbling lean-to for shelter amid piles of trash. But after a social worker saw her living in such deplorable conditions, she asked the owners to consider parting with her. After they agreed, the social worker immediately called PETA.
Our friends at the wonderful open-admission Virginia Beach SPCA (VBSPCA) shelter accepted beautiful Mya, and she already has an application for adoption.
PETA staffers spotted Becky while they were delivering straw bedding to chained dogs elsewhere. This beautiful dog spent all day every day dragging a heavy logging chain around a ramshackle pen.
After CAP's repeated visits to the home to give Becky straw, toys, treats, and TLC, her owners agreed to give her a shot at finding a home where she would be allowed to live indoors with the rest of the family. Again, our good friends at the VBSPCA stepped up, and now things are looking up for Becky.
What You Can Do
Support open-admission shelters like the Virginia Beach SPCA. Workers at such shelters never turn away an animal in need because they know that animals are more than statistics.
We can now add Suffolk, Virginia, to the growing list of cities that recognize that dogs deserve better than life on a chain—something that PETA has been advocating for a long time.
In January, when Suffolk Council Member Mike Duman initially proposed a tethering ban, he met with resistance. But two short months later, the council voted to ban chaining completely. How did this reversal occur?
PETA wrote to council members and got our friend the comedian Wanda Sykes, who is from Virginia, to do the same. Daphna Nachminovitch, our vice president of cruelty investigations, raised awareness about the issue by writing a blog for a local website.
And we asked Alice Conner to share with the council the story of her 2-year-old cousin who was killed by dogs in Suffolk who became aggressive after being chained for years.
Local PETA members and residents also weighed in. And our message got through loud and clear.
PETA's Community Animal Project staff members receive more calls about abused and neglected chained dogs in Suffolk than in any other area surrounding the Sam Simon Center, our Virginia headquarters. As of September 1, 2013, Suffolk residents who do this to their dogs will face fines!
We thank Mike Duman, Alice Conner, Wanda Sykes, and all the other compassionate people who helped make the Suffolk tethering ban a reality. Now, with the help of Sykes and actor Patton Oswalt, we are working with Newport News, one of the two remaining cities in the region that still don't restrict or ban chaining, to improve living conditions for its dog population.
If you would like to help get a chaining ban passed in your hometown, we offer a wealth of resources.
Written by PETA
In my first year working at a grossly substandard animal shelter in Maryland, I forced myself to go in early to euthanize dogs by holding them in my arms and gently helping them escape an uncaring world without trauma or pain and to spare them from being stabbed haphazardly—while they were fully conscious, terrified and aware—in the general vicinity of their hearts with needles blunt from reuse and left to thrash on the floor until they finally died by the callous people who would arrive later to do the job.
I always wonder how anyone cannot recognize that there is a world of difference between painlessly euthanizing animals out of compassion—aged, injured, sick, and dying animals whose guardians can't afford euthanasia, for instance—as PETA does, and causing them to suffer terror, pain, and a prolonged death while struggling to survive on the streets, at the hands of untrained and uncaring "technicians," or animal abusers.
It's easy to point the finger at those who are forced to do the "dirty work" caused by a throwaway society's casual acquisition and breeding of dogs and cats who end up homeless and unwanted, but at PETA, we will never turn our backs on neglected, unloved, and homeless animals—even if the best we can offer them is a painless release from a world that doesn't have enough heart or homes with room for them. It makes it easy for people to throw stones at us, but we are against all needless killing: for hamburgers, fur collars, dissection, sport hunting, the works. PETA handled far more animals than 2,069 in 2012. In fact, we took in more than 10,000 dogs and cats and work very hard to persuade people to spay and neuter their animals and to commit to a lifetime of care and respect for them. We go so far as to transport animals to and from our spay/neuter clinics, where they are spayed or neutered and given vet care, often for free! Since 2001, PETA's low- to no-cost spay-and-neuter mobile clinics, SNIP and ABC, have sterilized more than 50,000 animals, preventing hundreds of thousands of animals from being born, neglected, abandoned, abused, or euthanized when no one wanted them. And on a national level, PETA is focusing on the root of the problem through our Animal Birth Control (ABC) campaign.
If anyone has a good home, love, and respect to offer, we beg them: Go to a shelter and take one or two animals home. The problem is that few people do that, choosing instead to go to a breeder or a pet shop and not "fixing" their dogs and cats, which contributes to the high euthanasia rate that animal shelters face. Most of the animals we took in and euthanized could hardly be called "pets," as they had spent their lives chained up in the back yard, for instance. They were unsocialized, never having been inside a building of any kind or known a pat on the head. Others were indeed someone's, but they were aged, sick, injured, dying, too aggressive to place, and the like, and PETA offered them a painless release from suffering, with no charge to their owners or custodians.
Every day, PETA's fieldworkers help abused and neglected dogs—many of them pit bulls nowadays and many of them forced to live their lives on chains heavy enough to tow an 18-wheeler—by providing them with food; clean water; lightweight tie-outs; deworming medicine; flea, tick, and fly-strike prevention; free veterinary care; sturdy wooden doghouses stuffed with straw bedding; and love.
What we see is enough to make you lose faith in humanity. One pit bull we gained custody of, named Asia, looked like a skeleton covered with skin when PETA released her from the 15-pound chain she had been kept on for years. Asia suffered from three painful and deadly intestinal obstructions, which prevented her from keeping any food down. She faced an agonizing, lingering death, so our veterinarian recommended euthanasia to end her suffering. We pursued criminal charges against those responsible for her condition, leading to their conviction for cruelty to animals. That is just one of the dozens of cases we see every week.
The majority of adoptable dogs are never brought through our doors (we refer them to local adoption groups and walk-in animal shelters). Most of the animals we house, rescue, find homes for, or put out of their misery come from miserable conditions, which often lead to successful prosecution and the banning of animal abusers from ever owning or abusing animals again.
As long as animals are still purposely bred and people aren't spaying and neutering their companions, open-admission animal shelters and organizations like PETA must do society's dirty work. Euthanasia is not a solution to overpopulation but rather a tragic necessity given the present crisis. PETA is proud to be a "shelter of last resort," where animals who have no place to go or who are unwanted or suffering are welcomed with love and open arms.
Please, if you care about animals, help prevent more of them from being born only to end up chained and left to waste away in people's back yards, suffering on mean streets where people kick at them or shoo them away like garbage, tortured at the hands of animal abusers, or, alas, euthanized in animal shelters for lack of a good home. If you want to save lives, always have your animals spayed or neutered.
See more about how PETA saves animals.
Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk
Written by Alisa Mullins
How did you celebrate your last birthday? Did you have dinner at a nice restaurant? Take in a ballgame? Go to your friend's house for a surprise party? PETA Foundation staffer Kendall Bryant—aka "The Straw Boss"—would have none of that. She spent her birthday delivering straw bedding to cold dogs in North Carolina with her accomplice Dan "CircusesHurtAnimals.com" Carron. And because Kendall is a talented photographer and videographer, she documented her trip and turned it into a must-see video:
Kendall and Dan met pit bulls Tyson, Diamond, Pretty, and Tiger, who were all struggling to stay warm as best they could during the first snowfall of the winter. You can tell by their furiously wagging tails that they were nearly as thrilled to get some attention as they were to get fluffy straw, a hearty meal, and, in the case of Tyson, a lightweight tie-out to replace his heavy logging chain.
The pair also helped Bear, a golden retriever mix whose drinking water had frozen solid, and a pack of beagles, possibly used for hunting, who eagerly gobbled up the food that they were offered. (Many people don't realize that dogs kept outside in the wintertime burn more calories to keep warm and therefore need more food.)
In total, Kendall and Dan helped 18 dogs, three rabbits, a cat, and a rooster that day. I'd call that a birthday well spent.
Two things that PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk is passionate about are helping animals (no surprise there) and auto racing, so perhaps this was inevitable: After reading that NASCAR sponsorship this season is at a low, PETA has asked racing superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. to consider using the available space on his car to spread a lifesaving spay-and-neuter message.
tedmurphy | cc by 2.0
PETA has observed firsthand the effects of animal homelessness from its work on the front lines of animal protection. In Earnhardt's home state of North Carolina, PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) rescues animals, even when that means crawling through sewers, searching through junkyards, scaling trees, dodging cars, or enticing frightened strays to safety. CAP also delivers food, doghouses, and straw bedding to neglected animals who have never known a kind word or touch—and they return to monitor the animals' conditions, check their housing, and make sure that they have enough to eat and drink.
As PETA's letter to Earnhardt points out, around half of the 6 to 8 million animals who enter U.S. shelters each year must be euthanized for lack of enough good homes. Others never find a refuge and are left to fend for themselves on the streets, where they create more litters and often succumb to exposure or disease or even are abused by cruel people.
The solution to animal overpopulation is to reduce the birth rate through spaying and neutering—and once again, PETA is leading efforts to facilitate these vital procedures. Its mobile veterinary clinics offer low-cost to no-cost sterilization and other veterinary services in the most impoverished areas of North Carolina for families who cannot afford to have their animals fixed.
By placing a message on his car promoting spaying and neutering, Earnhardt could help his many fans understand that they can play a role in reducing the overpopulation of dogs and cats and drastically reducing their suffering.
Whether your ride is a stock car or a station wagon, you can help save the lives of homeless animals by spaying and neutering your own companions and working to pass mandatory spay/neuter legislation in your community.
PETA's Community Animal Project staffers' days are filled with tending to "forgotten" dogs, animals who have been relegated to a chain or a cage in the backyard and left to live out their days in solitary confinement—a punishment reserved for society's most dangerous criminals, yet these dogs have committed no crime. When our caseworkers find them, forgotten dogs are often suffering from the final stages of cancer, heartworm infestations, untreated infections, mange, hypothermia, or malnutrition. If you give a dog only the briefest of glances when you toss kibble in the bowl once a day, it's all too easy to turn a blind eye when the dog deteriorates from simply being filthy to being gravely ill.
Recently, PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk encountered one such dog, an elderly Rottweiler mix named Sam. She wrote about Sam in an essay that was posted on Ladies' Home Journal's sister website, DivineCaroline.com:
He had been a puppy once, welcomed into a home, played with, made a fuss over. But there came a day, probably not long into his young life, when he became too messy, too much trouble, too big—he was a Rottweiler mix, after all—too bothersome, and that's when he was put outside in the pen. That day was some 11 years ago. . . . When I found him, he was lying curled up in his plastic box with the chewed sides and the bare floor, just as he must surely have spent most of every day and every night for all those years. There was not a scrap of bedding, even though it was 37 degrees out, with temperatures forecast to drop to below zero that night. The pen stank of feces, and I could see his waste among the leaves. He had his back to me, so I called out to him and made loud kissing sounds, but it wasn't until I whistled that he heard me, turned around, and slowly came out of the box, making his way to the gate. ... His coat was dull and dirty. His ears bore faint scars from the previous summer, when he could not escape the flies, who, drawn to his urine, incessantly nibbled at him. I put a big chew bone near him, and he stopped, sniffed, and bent his head to the ground, taking a while to find it. That's when I realized that he had been navigating by smell and familiarity. He was blind.
He had been a puppy once, welcomed into a home, played with, made a fuss over. But there came a day, probably not long into his young life, when he became too messy, too much trouble, too big—he was a Rottweiler mix, after all—too bothersome, and that's when he was put outside in the pen. That day was some 11 years ago. . . .
When I found him, he was lying curled up in his plastic box with the chewed sides and the bare floor, just as he must surely have spent most of every day and every night for all those years. There was not a scrap of bedding, even though it was 37 degrees out, with temperatures forecast to drop to below zero that night. The pen stank of feces, and I could see his waste among the leaves.
He had his back to me, so I called out to him and made loud kissing sounds, but it wasn't until I whistled that he heard me, turned around, and slowly came out of the box, making his way to the gate. ...
His coat was dull and dirty. His ears bore faint scars from the previous summer, when he could not escape the flies, who, drawn to his urine, incessantly nibbled at him. I put a big chew bone near him, and he stopped, sniffed, and bent his head to the ground, taking a while to find it. That's when I realized that he had been navigating by smell and familiarity. He was blind.
Read Ingrid's essay in its entirety at DivineCaroline.com.
I'll be the first to admit that there's no way I could fill out a "Lettuce Lady" bikini the way that Pamela Anderson does. And that's OK, because Pam's biggest asset for animals is something every one of us can develop: compassion.
Take, for instance, another Pam we met recently. She called PETA from her hometown in Missouri because she had spotted two dogs who were chained in their owners' backyard. One had a small plastic doghouse with no insulation. The other had only a barrel propped against a tree. Both had only dirty water to drink. But because the dogs had food, water (albeit dirty), and some form of shelter, Animal Control wouldn't act.
Still determined to help, Pam called PETA. We explained that people who sentence dogs to chains are often quite willing simply to give them away to anyone who asks and helped her decide what she would say to the dogs' owners. It worked. The owners told Pam that she could have one of the dogs, Vandy—and just like that, he was free. The other dog, Diesel, belonged to the homeowners' daughter, however, and they wouldn't part with him.
Pam enlisted the help of a friend who volunteers at a local shelter, and together they took Vandy in and placed him up for adoption. It wasn't long before the pup had a new, loving indoor home.
But Pam wasn't finished. After PETA explained that straw is the best insulation for cold outdoor dogs because it is warm and doesn't hold moisture, Pam and her friend went shopping and returned with straw to help the chained dog survive the winter.
They continued to visit Diesel to play with him and make sure that his water bowl was clean. And we're pretty sure that when Diesel saw them coming, he got more excited than he would have even if Pamela Anderson had come walking into his yard. Soon enough—you guessed it—the owners agreed to let the women take Diesel to the shelter as well, where he is currently awaiting his own happy ending. Now, Pam has set her sights on getting a chaining ordinance passed to help all the chained dogs in her town.
Will you be a "Pam" for animals in need? Join PETA's Action Team to learn how you can help animals, wherever you are.
The following was written by Emily Allen, CAP Associate Director.
As Forrest Gump might say, fieldwork performed by staff of PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) is kind of like a box of chocolates—because on this job, you never know what you're going to get. We rescue abandoned, abused, and neglected animals in the areas surrounding PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters. It's a big task, and we are looking to expand our team.
On any given day, we could be crawling through a sewer, climbing a tree, or digging through a junkyard to rescue a terrified animal; shuttling animals of low-income families to our no-cost to low-cost spay and neuter clinics; or traveling into an impoverished neighborhood to deliver doghouses, bedding, food, and toys to animals who have been left outdoors.
We often come to the aid of neglected "backyard dogs" like Rambo, whose owner had left him trapped in a filthy pen with no food or water and whose every bone stood out like bare limbs on a tree. We worked with police to get him confiscated, and the owner was convicted of cruelty. That sweet dog, so trusting despite having been betrayed, was adopted by a fantastic family, gained 30 pounds, and now relishes the safe, comfortable indoor life—except for romps in the park, of course—that every dog deserves.
We are also called upon to help suffering stray and feral cats. One old cat was so severely injured that his image will stay with me forever. His side was practically covered by an open wound that was teeming with maggots. A woman had been feeding strays in her yard but was apparently oblivious to the cat's condition. We whisked the dying animal back to our office and gave him a peaceful release from his suffering.
Every day and every story are different, but I leave work each day feeling that, like the tale of the child who was saving the starfish who washed up on the beach, I may not be able to help them all, but I can help this one and that one and this one and …
Do you have what it takes to rescue abandoned, abused, and neglected animals? Apply to be a CAP fieldworker.
When PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) fieldworkers first met the sickly Lab mix they had received a call about, her condition broke their hearts. She was covered with fleas and ticks, was malnourished from too many days of going hungry, and was limping because of an injured back leg. Her owner had skipped town, pausing just long enough to tell his neighbor that he was leaving his dog behind and that the neighbor could "have her."
Instead, the neighbor phoned PETA for help. It wasn't CAP's first encounter with the dog's owner. He had let her have a litter of puppies and had called PETA asking us to find homes for them all. Fieldworkers had taken the puppies to the Virginia Beach SPCA for adoption, and now they were meeting the pups' mother. Despite all that she had been through, the sweet dog nuzzled her head under their hands and happily wagged her tail, grateful to be getting a bit of affection.
Back at PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters, a veterinarian determined that the dog was suffering from heartworm disease and that she had been shot in the leg months ago but was never treated for the injury. She would require heartworm treatment and extensive surgery on her leg. Fortunately, the dog with the dark past and the bright eyes had already captured a PETA Foundation staffer's heart. Robin had just lost one of her dogs, and something about this little girl's soulful eyes spoke to her. Within a few hours of the pup's arrival at PETA, she had a new home.
She also had a new name—Maggie—and four new canine siblings with whom she instantly bonded. Robin got her in to see her vet right away, and after hearing Maggie's story, he decided to help Robin out with the expensive treatments that Maggie would require. A bone graft, two rods, two screws, and a cast later, Maggie was on the mend.
With heartworm treatment and good food, she gained 20 pounds, and Robin reports that she can practically see herself in Maggie's shiny coat. Now she is a joyous, bouncy girl who loves to swim, go to the dog park, and "review" her guardians' DVDs (she gave Harry Potter two paws down—but it tasted delicious!). After likely getting no affection her entire life, Maggie soaks it up now, and she will gladly play from sunup to sundown.
Maggie's life, like her bowl, was once empty. Now her cup runneth over.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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