Dawn Forsythe was just a young girl in the 1950s when her dad, Arthur, got a job at the Detroit Zoo training chimpanzees to perform in shows. She grew up with the chimpanzees and was allowed behind the scenes of the shows, where the animals were housed and trained. She recalls holding the hand of a chimpanzee and thinking of him as her sibling.

Even though Dawn's father was abusive to her and her family, she never saw the connection between their home life and his job, and she loved going to the chimpanzee performances. Then someone saw Arthur throw a chimpanzee against the wall, like he had done to Dawn's mother, and Dawn wondered how many times Arthur had abused the animals as well. Many years later, as an adult, Dawn wanted to tell her firsthand account of the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans and the abusive ways in which chimpanzees are trained to perform. You can read the rest of her story here. 

Fortunately, zoos in the United States have stopped their chimpanzee performances. But the animals are still abused and made to perform, such as in current commercials for CareerBuilder. Please don't patronize companies that abuse chimpanzees in this way, and instead choose animal-friendly companies, such as Monster.
 

Outside CareerBuilder's Chicago headquarters, PETA members tell the company to stop abusing chimpanzees.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

For a monstrously successful job search, skip CrueltyBuilder and check out our cool new banner ad for Monster.

Why are we giving Monster top billing on our website? Because Monster successfully brings together employers and job seekers—of the human variety—and leaves abused animal actors out of the picture. Monster's awesome animatronic fiddling beaver ad is a huge YouTube hit.

Maybe Monster chose inanimate "actors" because it is aware that animal actors are torn away from their mothers as infants; subjected to abusive training methods; forced to spend most of their lives in small, filthy cages deprived of everything that is natural and important to them; and often dumped at seedy roadside zoos. Or maybe Monster is just as innovative with its ads as it is with its job services.

If you're searching for a job and you happen to be a human, check out Monster.com. And let CareerBuilder know that people want jobs, animals don't.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Take it from someone who uses the Super Bowl as a bathroom break to get back to the main-event (commercials!): This year, the ads that were shown during the big game made history with their creative alternatives to live animals. Check out our five animal-friendly favorites:

• "Whale of a Tale," Bridgestone: Three friends. One animatronic whale. Millions of happy viewers. Bridgestone also gets extra kudos from us for recently banning the use of endangered animals in all of its commercials!
• "Timothy Richman," Cars.com: The pros of animatronic tiger cub birth: clean, cute, and pain-free. The cons of animatronic tiger cub birth? We can't think of any.
• "Finding Beaver," Monster.com: Leave it to this (CGI) beaver…to play the fiddle? Hoedown, here we come!
• "Squirrel," Honda: Why can't all hoarders be this sleek, adorable, and (faux) furry?
• "Underdog," Doritos: We yelled "Holla!" when this taunted dog flipped the tables and put the shock collar on the man. Payback is simply delicious.

Animatronics have sure come a long way since the Country Bear Jamboree. We need to get Monster.com on the Punxsutawney Phil case stat!

What was your favorite Super Bowl ad?

Written by Logan Scherer