O, Canada! We're always busy, busy, busy during this festive season, but we haven't forgotten our pals in the Great White North—y compris nos amis francophones. Yanks and Canucks have so much in common, and yet there are distinctive differences. For example, while the yuletide finds a disturbing number of friendly, intelligent pigs on this side of the 49th parallel killed for ham, it's the saddest day of the year for abused factory-farmed turkeys in Canada. So PETA is encouraging Canadian kids (since kids haven't yet been taught to suppress their natural compassion for animals) to consider what—and who—they're eating. PETA has placed the attention-grabbing holiday billboard seen below on a highway leading into Victoria, British Columbia.

PETA's also giving U.S. kids something to chew on other than cruelly produced ham with this billboard, just outside Reno, Nevada. 

Of course, companion animals need our help, too—and it's not just children who need to reconsider their attitudes. So PETA is also looking to put up a brand-new billboard—promoting spaying and neutering to effectively curb animal overpopulation—in the hope of reaching those kind people for whom this season is more about revering Mary than reveling merrily.

We'd like to thank all the donors whose support of PETA makes it possible to place these billboards, which foster awareness of animal rights. 

What You Can Do

To give a holiday gift that keeps on giving to animals year-round, become a PETA member. And please remember to shop PETA for everyone on your list—each purchase funds vital efforts to improve and save animals' lives!

While Hurricane Sandy's gale-force winds rattled buildings and its driving rain flooded roads, most people probably weren't thinking about spaying and neutering animals. But that's exactly what the folks who staff PETA's Mobile Clinics Division (MCD) program were thinking. Natural disasters should strengthen our resolve to spay and neuter because fewer unwanted animals born means fewer stray animals left to suffer on the streets.

Despite not being able to provide low-cost spay-and-neuter services in the middle of the hurricane—or over the Thanksgiving holiday, when people had other things on their minds—the MCD team altered almost 700 animals in November—699, to be exact.

Here are just a few of them: 

This dear pit bull's guardian is undergoing cancer treatment and wasn't able to take her dog to the vet. PETA got Sasha spayed, vaccinated, and back home again to comfort her guardian.

Morgan and Beanie might not have been as desperate to be spayed as they were to get cookies—but fortunately, they got both.

Teepee was already in heat, so her guardian knew that there was no time to waste. We quickly got Teepee spayed before she could add to the overpopulation crisis.

In just one year, one unspayed cat can give birth to 16 kittens and an unspayed dog can produce 12 puppies. Please help us stem the animal-homelessness crisis by supporting your local spay-and-neuter initiatives.

Thanks to our supporters, PETA just brought home the trophy for Favorite Nonprofit Animal Organization in the 2012 Veggie Awards! The annual awards, presented by VegNews Magazine, celebrate "the very best of all things vegan."

What sets PETA supporters apart is that you are determined and committed in the quest for animal rights. When we let you know that someone is abusing animals, you e-mail the perps, demonstrate, and write and call the abuser demanding an end to the cruelty. You speak up, march with us, put on costumes, and even strip down—whatever it takes to make people pay attention to animal welfare issues. You proudly sport our shirts and bumper stickers, proclaiming to everyone that animals are not ours to use and abuse. You drive out in the middle of the night—or in the middle of a hurricane—to rescue animals in peril. And you donate your money to fund undercover investigations, literature, doghouses, spay-and-neuter surgeries, emergency animal rescues, and everything else that we do.

You are the reason that PETA can save as many animals as we do, so we thank VegNews and you. We are honored to share the award for Favorite Nonprofit Animal Organization with every one of you.

 When a Houston woman found a skinny kitten covered with fleas, she began calling "no-kill" shelters looking for somewhere to take the animal, not knowing that these types of shelters are usually full and offer no help. Frustrated and worried, she called PETA.

We encouraged the caller to bring the kitten indoors right away and set up a temporary home for the animal in the bathroom, where the tabby would be safe and could be given much-needed food and water. The woman agreed. We found a reputable open-admission shelter in the area that would be able to accept the kitten when it opened the next day. The next morning, after just one phone call, the kitten had a welcoming, comfortable place to stay and a chance for a home. Once again, "no-kill" shelters had done nothing to help, while an open-admission shelter had. Open-admission shelters can't place every animal, but they don't turn their backs and leave kittens like this to suffer on the streets or end up giving birth and compounding the homelessness crisis.

So-called "no-kill" shelters sound heroic, but they are often anything but. In reality, they are limited-admission shelters, which turn away the most vulnerable animals and often allow only the youngest, cutest animals admission. And many such places force animals to live for years in a cage, even when the animals are sick or losing their minds from such confinement.

No one wants to have to perform euthanasia, but some of the most caring people in the world have to be brave enough to provide animals with a painless exit from an uncaring world—because no matter what the "no-kill" hucksters and hoarders say, there are too many dogs and cats and too few homes, and leaving them on the streets, selling them to laboratories, or just shunting them along to other states, is not a solution to the animal-homelessness crisis. 

Blame needs to be placed where it belongs—at the hands of breeders, and people who refuse to spay and neuter their animals. In the meantime, open-admission shelters will continue to take in all of society's castoffs, not just the young, healthy, and cute ones—and not just when it's convenient.

If you know anyone who is thinking of buying instead of adopting or who still needs to make that sterilization appointment for a dog or cat, please help us reduce euthanasia by giving them the facts, not by supporting some "no-kill" fantasy facility. 

Each month, PETA's mobile spay-and-neuter clinics alter many hundreds of animals, preventing hundreds of thousands of unwanted ones from being born. Every animal we help has a story. Here are a few of the many patients who made it a September to remember:

1. 

Frieda's guardian is 80 years old, but his love for his dog keeps him young at heart. He was thrilled that we could spay Frieda and even give her a ride to and from our clinic.

2. 

Blue isn't blue anymore. This beautiful pit bull, who lives indoors with her guardian, had sustained an eye injury. Blue's guardian had planned to breed her, but since she didn't have the money to treat Blue's injury, she agreed to let us spay the pup if we would treat her eye. Now Blue is pain-free and litter-free.

3. 

RJ is a bouncy, happy pup. We transported this young 80-pound ball of energy to our clinic, and now we are happy that he is not contributing to the animal-homelessness crisis.

4. 

Cotton wasn't a big fan of being driven to our clinic and getting her free spay surgery, so this feisty kitten was super-happy to get back into her guardian's waiting arms.

5. 

Magic is feeling a lot more magical after PETA gave him a lift to our clinic, a flea bath and flea medicine, and a little "snip" surgery.

The dog (and cat) days of summer are coming to a close, but for PETA's Mobile Clinics Division, the season started out busy and just got, well, hotter, as PETA's clinics kept on truckin', bringing low-cost to no-cost spay and neuter surgeries and other veterinary services to animals across PETA's home region.

In August, the mobile clinics spayed or neutered 952 animals, including 128 feral cats and 61 pit bulls. Here are some of the lucky dogs and cats helped by PETA's clinic teams this month:

1. 

Sadie was homeless—and very pregnant—when she was found and taken in by this nice family. After her puppies were born, PETA transferred them to a shelter for adoption and spayed Sadie so that she won't contribute to the overpopulation crisis again.

2. 

After PETA's caseworkers encountered Zoe while out working in the field, they not only arranged to have her spayed but also provided her with round-trip transportation to and from the clinic.

3. 

PETA also transported Sugar and Sage to their appointment with the mobile clinic because their guardians' car wasn't working—but not before the entire family posed for a picture!

What You Can Do

Although summer's over, PETA's efforts to stop animal homelessness will continue year-round—your donation will help keep all our lifesaving work moving forward!

After Rosie O'Donnell suffered a heart attack and discovered that one of her arteries was 99 percent blocked, she knew it was time to change her lifestyle. She cleaned her diet of animal products, watched the powerful documentary Forks Over Knives, and spoke with one of the film's driving forces (and Bill Clinton mentor), Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. PETA also sent her a vegetarian/vegan starter kit, Paul McCartney's slaughterhouse exposé "Glass Walls," and cookbooks. Rosie is keeping her fans updated via Twitter and her blog, noting that she is losing weight and feeling healthier.

Houston Texans running back Arian Foster is getting a rush from being vegan. As the favorite to lead the NFL in rushing yards this season, he joined the celebrities who were advocating for animals on Twitter this week by posting some hilarious words for naysayers:

PeoplePets.com named its favorite "pet Tweethearts"—celebrities who fill the Twitterverse with "aww-worthy" pictures and sentiments about their animal companions. Rescue advocates Miley Cyrus and Carrie Underwood graced the list with numerous posts about their beloved dogs.

Bradley Cooper prefers to sing the praises of his rescued dog in more than 140 characters. He took his pup, Charlotte, along for his appearance on Live! With Kelly. His other rescued dog, Samson, passed away earlier this year, but we wouldn't be surprised to see Bradley and Charlotte adopting a new member into the family soon.

Missy Elliott is dropping two new singles over Labor Day weekend, but she isn't dropping her stance on spaying and neutering: Missy knows that a real "misdemeanor" would be contributing to animal homelessness by not having your dogs and cats sterilized. 

To keep up with how the stars are helping animals, follow @PETA on Twitter.

After three decades of treating patients, Dr. Drew Pinsky knows a thing or two about curing problems. And as one of the most listened-to physicians in America, he's prescribing the perfect remedy for the animal homelessness crisis: spaying and neutering. Along with his two dogs, Daisy and Lulu, Dr. Drew shot a new ad for PETA asking everyone to be a part of the cure:

At yesterday's unveiling of the ad outside the CNN studios in Los Angeles, he told the throng of reporters and fans:

"This is a really important campaign for me; something easy to get behind. All of us should get behind it. Eight million homeless pets in this country, four million (only half of them) ever get adopted. … If we are responsible enough to adopt a pet, we've got to be responsible enough to get them spayed or neutered."

The Sam Simon Foundation, which provides dogs and cats in the Los Angeles area with free and low-cost sterilization, distributed vouchers for free spay and neuter surgeries.

As Dr. Drew put it, "So now there's no reason not to include this in the healthcare of your animals." Join Dr. Drew in helping to end the animal homelessness crisis: Always spay and neuter. 

For animals, a summer romance can mean adding to the overpopulation crisis. But after July, nearly 800 animals near PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters won't have to worry about "getting in trouble"—like Rizzo. 

PETA's mobile veterinary clinics "snipped" 794 animals, including 154 whose families couldn't afford spay and neuter surgeries and 40 who couldn't get to the veterinarian without a ride there and back.

One patient, Trixie, lives in an area where there are no low-cost spay-and-neuter services available. Her guardian, a grandmother who is single-handedly caring for all her grandchildren, was ecstatic to be able to get Trixie spayed.

Not only did Coco the poodle get spayed, she also got the full beauty treatment. Staffers removed the painful mats from her fur, and now she and her happy guardian are sitting pretty.

Want to show animals some love this summer? Start by signing the pledge to end animal homelessness. 

While we don't know exactly how Emma's life began, her story starts the way that too many dogs' stories do: She was wandering the streets, homeless, thin, petrified, and alone. Her luck changed when a PETA Community Animal Project (CAP) staffer found her on a neighbor's front stoop, soaking wet and trembling, and cajoled the terrified dog into a fenced-in yard. Eventually—with lots of patience and tempting food—the CAP staffer got the pup leashed and into the car.

She was rail-thin from scavenging for scraps on the streets and was so terrified of people that she cowered and shook when anyone came near. But after a few days of hearty eating, a spay surgery, and other veterinary care—and a lot of TLC from her foster family—Emma began to emerge from her shell.

As luck would have it, a wonderful family whose dog had just passed away was searching for a new canine companion, and when they met the blossoming 2-year-old, it was love at first sight. As she headed to her new home, Emma seemed to understand that her days of being homeless and unwanted were long gone.

Now, Emma is a different dog from the one PETA first rescued: adventurous, confident, and full of life. She spends so much time perfecting her doggie paddle that she could be training for the Olympics, and her list of "likes" reads like a personal ad: swimming, boating, going to the dog park, running, and taking long walks. But little Emma doesn't need a personal ad—she's already found the loves of her life.