How You Can Help

How can you help in Virginia, North Carolina, or your home state? Check out the following suggestions:

• Adopt a homeless animal. If you feel that you can offer a home to an animal, please go to your local animal shelter. It's a good idea to adopt two animals so that they can keep each other company. If you cannot adopt at this time, spend some time volunteering here at PETA or at your local animal shelter.
• Be an all-weather friend. Hot weather can be deadly for dogs left outside without shade or water. In the wintertime, animals left outside can suffer from frostbite and exposure and from dehydration when water sources freeze. Watch for animals in your neighborhood suffering in either extreme, and take action right away. If you live in PETA's hometown, throughout the chilly months, you can pick up free straw for outdoor dogs at PETA's headquarters at 501 Front St. in Norfolk.
• Be prepared.
  • Take a moment now to make important preparations to safeguard your animals when hurricanes, floods, or other natural disasters strike. Use our disaster checklist to be sure that you don't miss anything.
  • You're behind the wheel when you spot a dog running along the road with no collar. You get the leash from your "Animal Rescue Car Kit"—which also includes cans of dog and cat food, a blanket, and a cardboard cat carrier—and coax him or her over to your car. Now what? Make and keep a list of local animal control agencies and emergency veterinarians in your area, like the one for PETA's hometown below.
  • If you live in Hampton Roads, print out PETA's directory of local animal emergency contacts.
• Get active.
  • You can also help by lobbying your city council or other legislative body for dog-chaining bans or restrictions, for spay-and-neuter legislation, to get pet shops out of local malls, to make sure that local animal shelters require spaying and neutering before adoption, and by distributing our educational literature. Feel free to contact us for other suggestions. You can make a difference!
  • If you witness cruelty to animals, speak up for those who can't speak for themselves. Report cruelty to your local animal control agencies or to PETA.
• Support PETA so that we can continue to do lifesaving work for animals.