Written by Michelle Kretzer
In honor of "Adopt a Shelter Cat" Month, here are some of our favorite cute cats and cool kittens:
1.
Lil Bub knows that being the Web's favorite cat is serious business. She uses her platform to encourage people to spay and neuter, to say no to declawing, to adopt instead of buying, and to be all-around awesome animal guardians.
2.
Shadow literally walked right into Dancing With the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba's life—through her front door as a stray. He quickly won her heart and then went after several hundred thousand more with his PETA ad.
3.
What do you think about a cat who's a Morrissey fan? Obviously, he has great taste in music, has a wry sense of humor, and is a big spay/neuter advocate!
4.
Mr. Nix lived up to his name when he helped his favorite human, Tricia Helfer, nix the problem of cats being neglected by their guardians. And clearly he did it with panache.
5.
Slick Willie won hearts and minds on Twitter when he and his guardian, Nyjer Morgan, starred in an ad for PETA. But before Slick Willie was famous, he was in an animal shelter looking for a home like millions of other cats. So he used his platform to encourage everyone always to adopt, never buy.
6.
The Situation is used to being surrounded by females, but even he realizes the importance of protection. These frisky felines help show everyone why it's crucial to spay and neuter.
7.
It was pretty clear what rescued cat Toni thought of her costar, Torrey DeVitto, during the shooting of her anti-dissection ad: "She's grrrrreat!" And Toni was great at showing kids that they have a choice not to dissect any animal.
If you are ready to share your home with a new cat, please take a cue from these famous felines and adopt one from your local animal shelter, spay or neuter him or her, and give your cat a lifetime of quality care and friendship.
Written by Alisa Mullins
When a woman driving along a muddy rural Virginia road stopped at an intersection, she spotted a soggy, disintegrating cardboard box sitting on the shoulder. Curious, she got out to investigate. Imagine her surprise when she opened the box and saw nine pairs of eyes staring back at her.
She called animal control officers to report the abandoned kittens but was told that they "don't handle cats," an appalling but not uncommon policy among rural animal control agencies (and also among a growing number of "no-kill" facilities).
She then called PETA to alert us to the kittens' plight, and one of our stellar volunteers immediately rushed to the scene an hour and a half away. Miraculously, the kittens had not escaped from the box and been hit by a car.
The kittens are now safely ensconced at PETA's Sam Simon Center in Norfolk, Virginia, and stealing hearts right and left. They are about 6 weeks old and, despite everything that they've been through, are friendly and playful and appear to be in good health. They are mostly brown and gray tabbies and are all 100 percent adorable.
Live on or near the East Coast and want to adopt one (or two)? Drop us a line at Adopt@peta.org. The $75 adoption fee includes spay/neuter surgery, vaccines, testing for feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukemia virus, and microchipping.
What You Can Do
If you ever see a box or bag on the side of the road, stop! You never know what—or who—may be inside. And of course, stop to help any strays you see running alongside the road as well. Keep a rescue kit—including a cardboard carrier, leash, towel, and treats—in your car for just such an emergency.
And always, always, always spay and neuter your animal companions, and urge everyone you know to do the same. Cat homelessness is at crisis levels, so it is vital that all cats be spayed and neutered, even kittens (females can come into heat at just 4 months old) and cats who never go outside (they can slip out accidentally). If a friend can't afford the surgery or has no car, offer to help with the cost and transportation. Cats need you—don't let them down!
It's a girl for Emma Roberts and Evan Peters! After the couple adopted a beautiful dog named Audrey Hepburn, PETA sent the trio a basket filled with toys, treats, and our "Always Root for the Underdog" tees.
http://dirtywhorelebrity.com/ | cc by 2.0
In other celeb news, Alicia Silverstone wants to see animal abusers pay. So when she learned that no charges have been filed against the operators of Global Captive Breeders, LLC, even though authorities seized more than 18,000 rats and 600 reptiles from deplorable conditions in the facility, she swung into action—joining PETA pal Jenna Dewan Tatum—and urging fans through her website and Twitter accounts to add their names to PETA's petition calling on the Riverside County, California, district attorney to file felony cruelty charges against the people who left animals to suffer without food, water, or veterinary care; allowed their cages to flood; and slammed them against hard surfaces in attempts to kill them. And considering Alicia's staunch animal advocacy, this likely won't be the last that the D.A. hears from her.
Many other celebs joined Alicia this week and spread animal-friendly messages throughout the Twitterverse:
Elsewhere in Hollywood:
To keep up with what all your favorite stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
Remember Bea, the extremely cute dog we told you about last month?
After we featured her on this blog and on our Facebook page, a kind woman spotted her irresistible mug and, well, couldn't resist it. But what really sealed the deal was the fact that Bea was the woman's grandmother's name, so she figured that adopting this winsome little gal was "meant to Bea."
The only hitch in the plan? The adoptive family lives in Massachusetts, 550 miles from Bea's foster home near PETA's headquarters, the Sam Simon Center in Norfolk, Virginia. But PETA fieldworker Kelly Kercheval rose to the challenge and volunteered to make the 12-hour drive to Bea's new home. Fortunately, the pup proved to be an eager traveler and seemed to relish the chance to relax and see the sights.
Bea now has a spacious new 1-acre fenced yard that she enjoys running around in. She has three canine siblings to play with and has already claimed the prime real estate on the couch. Her family reports that she loves having her tummy scratched more than just about anything else in the world.
If you are interested in adopting an animal, visit your local shelter or keep an eye on this blog for available animals. E-mail Adopt@peta.org if you would like to be added to our list of potential adopters.
When a PETA staffer left her desk for a few minutes, she returned to find that the sweetest case of theft ever had occurred. The culprit was Franco, a 7-week-old puppy who is greatly increasing the office's cuteness quotient while he awaits his forever home.
When Franco was first surrendered to PETA, we feared that he might have parvovirus. Thankfully, it turned out that his lethargy and anemia were caused by a severe case of intestinal worms, and he is recovering nicely with treatment. And the better he feels, the more his rambunctious personality comes out to play. He stumbles around the office on his wobbly puppy legs, grabbing pant legs and skirt hems and making a toy out of everything.
Like most puppies, Franco has tons of energy. When he wants attention, he will readily let people know by following them around and "talking," and he rewards everyone's affection with a thousand kisses. He is searching for a family that will take him on long walks, give him plenty of playtime and attention, and housetrain him gently. If your home is the perfect place for Franco, please e-mail Adopt@peta.org.
The Food and Drug Administration just lowered the age at which girls can get the Plan B oral contraceptive without a prescription to 15. Critics argue that that's too young, but PETA insists that birth control should start as early as 8 weeks—for puppies and kittens. It's called "prepubescent sterilization," and to illustrate our point, we're planning to place this billboard in Oklahoma, which has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country:
iStockphoto.com/Kati Neudert
Animals can't unwrap a condom, open a package of birth control pills, or walk into a pharmacy and request Plan B. So responsible animal guardians should start their young charges off on the right paw—by spaying and neutering them as soon as possible. This prevents "oops" litters before guardians realize that the animals are sexually mature. Cats, for example, can become pregnant as young as 4 months old.
Sterilization ensures that your animal companions won't contribute to the animal-overpopulation crisis. Just one unaltered female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in only six years. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can produce 370,000 kittens.
Early spaying and neutering has health benefits, too: It reduces animals' risk of some forms of cancer and other diseases. A study by the University of Georgia found that spayed and neutered dogs live an average of about a year and a half longer than unaltered animals.
Don't let your animal companions qualify for the next Teen Mom cast: Spay and neuter them.
Written by Jeff Mackey
Just what exactly is PETA doing to help combat the animal overpopulation crisis and provide vulnerable animals with assistance? This infographic breaks it down:
Help animals in your neighborhood as well as low-income areas get spayed and neutered, promote adoption from animal shelters instead of buying from breeders or pet stores, and demand appropriate animal-care standards in your community.
Visit PETASaves.com for more information.
Screen legend Anjelica Huston knows what makes good TV and what doesn't. And there's no question which side of the line ads that use great apes fall on. She is urging Steak 'n Shake to pull its current TV spot that includes a forced performance by a chimpanzee. Along with a copy of her video exposé about great-ape "actors," Anjelica sent the company a long letter, saying, in part, "These chimpanzees are destined to endure a lifetime of abuse for your 30-second spot—a point that no compassionate person would find funny in the least."
The stars of Enlightened are enlightened enough to know that you don't force animals to perform—but you can ask a PETA staffer to! Star Mike White is such a big fan of PETA that he invited PETA Vice President Lisa Lange to make a guest appearance on this Sunday's episode and plug the organization. And during filming, Laura Dern thanked Lisa for what PETA is doing for animals.
Zachary Quinto knows the right way to put animals on camera: making a film starring homeless dogs that's about adopting from animal shelters instead of buying from pet stores and breeders. And Zachary's tweet about his film Dog Eat Dog was one of our paws-down favorites this week:
Anne Hathaway was a paws-down favorite at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, accepting her award in custom-made vegan Jimmy Choos.
Actor Aisha Tyler took to Twitter to talk about some vegan meals she has been enjoying, and PETA has been helping by tweeting Aisha links to tasty recipes.
And Paul McCartney gave us plenty of them to choose from with his Meat Free Monday Cookbook. He reflected on decades of meat-free eating and animal advocacy as well as how he is honoring Linda McCartney's life in a poignant piece titled, "My Life as a Vegetarian – Supporting Linda's Legacy."
Fauja Singh will be leaving quite the legacy as well. The world's oldest marathon runner has announced that he will retire this year at the ripe old age of 101. What does he say gave him his longevity and fitness? Exercise and a vegetarian diet, of course.
To keep up with what all the stars are doing for animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.
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.
Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS) recently announced that its shelters had a "no-kill December," a month during which the department reportedly "did not euthanize any treatable or healthy animals in its care." While this certainly sounds wonderful and is what every animal shelter strives to achieve, one blogger explains what the numbers really translate into and how the welfare of animals is disregarded when statistics become more of a focus than the animals themselves.
Longtime friend to animals, Phyllis Daugherty, examined what "no-kill December" really meant for animals who found refuge at LAAS last month and asked, "Are we really to believe that with no other changes but a change of mind, suddenly all the least desirable animals were swept from the shelter into 'forever' homes, or even just to somewhere that they can be assured a humane life?"
While LAAS announced a 90 percent "live-save" rate for December, this does not mean a 90 percent adoption rate. The term "live-save" means only that the animals left the shelter, not that they went to qualified, screened homes. As Daugherty explains, "Often the pet is merely taken to another shelter by 'transport,' and possibly transported many times to different shelters in different areas in the country if [he or she] is not adopted. Once the animal has left the L.A. shelter, [his or her] impound (ID) number may be changed many times, so we really don't know what ultimately happens to [him or her]."
Just days after Daugherty's article was posted, humane and sheriff's officials in Oregon raided a self-purported "rescue" where more than 140 dogs were found starving, stuffed into tiny stacked travel carriers amid their own waste and without access to water, after being "saved" from euthanasia at an open-admission animal shelter in California. Many were found with their eyes sealed shut with mucus and pus, and urine and excrement were dripping onto them from the cages above. One dog was found in a carrier so small that "he was unable to lie down, sit or stand up." The Oregonian reported, "Some of the dogs were in such an advanced state of starvation that technicians will have to use a 'refeeding program' to reintroduce small amounts of easily digestible food."
Regarding LAAS, Daugherty rightfully asks, "Is this a sustainable or desirable solution?" When the focus shifts from protecting animals to playing a numbers game, animals pay the price, bounced around like rubber balls and often ending up in situations so cruel and harsh that being "saved" becomes a fate far worse than a painless exit from a world that has already betrayed them once.
And unlike rubber balls, animals become confused and distressed when bounced around, often developing severe separation anxiety and other behavioral symptoms as they are moved from place to place. PETA has investigated and exposed many hoarder "rescue" facilities—places such as Caboodle Ranch, Angel's Gate, All Creatures Great and Small, and other hellholes—where animals end up languishing in criminally cruel conditions after they have been "saved" from open-admission shelters that are desperately trying to fend off criticism from an ill-informed public misled by the "no-kill" movement.
LAAS reports on its Facebook page that during the December effort, compassionate "volunteers complained that [LAAS was] keeping too many animals. And it did get crowded." We have to ask why the humane community is so quick to tolerate the suffering and danger inflicted on animals who are the victims of the "no-kill" fantasy.
As PETA has stressed for decades—and put its money where its mouth is by spaying and neutering nearly 90,000 animals at low or no cost in the past 10 years—the only way that we can truly hope to become a "no-kill" nation is to work at the roots, not at the "feel good" treetops. We must first become a no-birth nation through aggressive spay/neuter initiatives—only then we can truly save lives.
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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