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When Vickie McCauley unwrapped the body that she and her co-workers had found abandoned near their Austin office, she was sickened by what she saw. The pit bull's paws were reportedly bound with rope, her throat had been sliced open, and her face had been set on fire.

"If I think about what they did to her and she was alive," McCauley said. "It makes me cry because it makes me so sad."

Officials apparently didn't bother to unwrap the bundle, possibly assuming that the dog had simply been discarded there by someone who had nowhere else to put her after she died.

But McCauley wasn't willing to let the poor, tortured animal's suffering go unpunished. She demanded justice and insisted on further investigation. McCauley turned to the Internet, where she has been circulating pictures and pleas for help. "This is torture worse than I've ever seen in my life," McCauley said. "And, I want whoever did this to know this is wrong! You can't go around doing things like this to animals."

We have stepped in and are offering a $2,500 reward to help find the person (or people) responsible for this atrocious crime. But cruelty cases like this are all too common, so if you become aware of animal abuse, follow Vickie McCauley's example and insist that authorities take action!

Written by Jeff Mackey

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Case in point: This past weekend, Austin was home to the second annual veggie-hot-dog–eating contest, organized by iLoveMikeLitt. Now, last year, we bemoaned missing the first-annual (well, first-ever at that point) contest. So imagine how I feel about missing this year's event, since Austin's a mere three-hour drive from my home in Houston (slogan: "Houston's great—no, really!").

Somehow they managed to carry on without me, though. In fact, nearly 300 folks showed up—including Austin's famed vegan firefighters—to polish off 1,500 LightLife Tofu Pups, along with 14 gallons of vegan ice cream from Austin's own NadaMoo. In the solo contest, Spencer "Tree" Lockwood ate 21 hot dogs to narrowly edge out last year's solo champ, Colin "The Tim Duncan of Competitive Eating" Kalmbacher, whose sentiments captured the quintessentially Austin nature of the whole event:

Indeed. If you're an Austinite (Austinian?), be sure to sign up for the iLoveMikeLitt event newsletter so that you don't miss out on next year's contest—or other fun stuff like Vegan Arm Wrestling and Veggie Speed Dating. Those of us living in less "weird" places can still get in on the fun—I'm staging my own vegan hot-dog–eating party for the Fourth of July (though, so far, it's just me and my soy-loving hound, Gus). Our resident foodies have picked their favorites, but I'm interested to know what you'll have on the grill over the holiday. Fire it up!

Posted by Jeff Mackey

… apart from the fact that most of them are reprehensible hedonists who care more about living the high life than living a good life—though they probably knew that already. Turns out that foie gras is a carrier for a rare but exceptionally nasty little disease called amyloidosis, which is akin to Mad Cow disease—another little gift from the meat industry to its buying public. You can read more about the discovery here, though as far as I'm concerned, the only reasons that anyone could possibly need to boycott this particular “delicacy” are right here:

In other foie gras news, my good friend Noah, who works for a group called Central Texas Animal Defense, has been very busy this month helping restaurants in his hometown of Austin get the foie gras off their menus for good. You can read about his efforts here.