Tired of going through racks of Halloween costumes and seeing the same old hockey masks and sexy nurse uniforms? Here are six scary DIY costumes guaranteed to make the most fearless revelers do a double-take—and then think twice about eating meat, wearing fur, or going to the circus.

Steal an idea from PETA Vice President Dan Mathews and go as KFC's purveyor of live-chicken scalding, Colonel Sanders. 

Instantly transform into bunny butcher Donna Karan by carrying some plush rabbits drenched in red paint. To complete the ensemble, lie all night about how you don't really use fur even while you're holding the evidence. 

Clowns are scary to a lot of people, and Ronald McDonald is one of the scariest of all. Follow in Andy Dick's footsteps and wave around a bloody knife as you illustrate how a chicken becomes a McNugget. (Hint: It's a lot more cruel than it has to be because McDonald's refuses to implement a less cruel slaughter method for chickens.) 

If you want the theme to your outfit to be "cold as ice," be a Canadian seal clubber. A plush seal, a club, and a red-stained shirt will have anyone with a heartbeat running and screaming for points south of the Great White North.

If splashy is more your style, don a top hat and tails or a tight Lycra jumpsuit and you can be a Ringling Bros. animal trainer abuser. It works best if accessorized with a bullhook and paired with a partner dressed as a helpless baby elephant.

For women who want to show that fur is a bad asset, pair a Sasquatch suit with two strategically placed pillows and a diva attitude to become Jennifer Lopez. Be sure to brag about how you burn through animals like you burn through husbands.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus brought the Cruelest Show on Earth to Norfolk, Virginia, where PETA is headquartered, we were waiting for it with a demonstration 75 people strong.
 

 
Why are we so riled at Ringling? Here are the top five reasons it's better to protest Ringling than to attend a performance:

1. Ringling tears families apart—ripping baby elephants away from their mothers to spend a lifetime in the circus—but protesting brings families together.
2. Four dead baby elephants—and counting. Babies Bertha, Kenny, Benjamin, and Riccardo have all died since 1992. Baby elephant Barack was recently pulled from the road when he became very sick with the stress-related and often fatal disease EEHV for the second time in his young life.
3. Ringling's "training" consists of beating elephants with steel-tipped bullhooks, sometimes until they're bloody. Handlers cover the wounds with a gray powder called "Wonder Dust." 
4. When they aren't being forced to perform, elephants are often chained inside filthy, poorly ventilated boxcars for 26 straight hours, on average, and sometimes for 60 to 70 and even 100 hours at a time while they're traveling.
5. And the best reason of all … you can perform the spectacular feat of caring. Anybody can do a belly flop into a net, but how many people can say they helped to protect animals from cruelty today?
    

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Rock icon and animal defender Pink recently fired off a letter to President Obama asking him to find out why the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has closed three investigations into serious allegations of cruelty to animals by the Ringling Bros. circus without taking action. The investigations expired because of the statute of limitations—a delay caused by the USDA, the very department that was supposed to be investigating Ringling!
 

 
PETA is challenging the Office of General Counsel to reopen these investigations because the following animals suffered and died while in Ringling's "care":

• Clyde, a 2-year-old lion, was killed when he was allowed to bake to death in a boxcar as the circus traveled through the Mojave Desert on a scorching July day when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees. The circus refused to stop the train so that Clyde could be watered because the train was behind schedule.
• Eight-month-old baby elephant Riccardo was killed while he was being violently trained with ropes and bullhooks to stand on a circus pedestal. He fell off the pedestal, breaking both of his legs and requiring that he be euthanized.
• Elephant Angelica was beaten with a bullhook while she was chained by two legs.

Five years ago, while still serving as a senator, Barack Obama asked the USDA on PETA's behalf for an update on these pending cases and was assured that appropriate action was being pursued.

The lack of action in these investigations is particularly troubling since government officials have already been found to be in cahoots with Ringling.

We're also calling on the USDA to seize four elephant traveling with Ringling right now who are suffering from painful arthritis. Please don't wait to speak out for these animals—they need you now.

 
Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Undercover footage released by London-based Animal Defenders International shows an elephant handler with the "Super Circus" as he viciously kicks and beats a chained 58-year-old elephant named Annie with a pitchfork and a club. At one point, it appears that the elephant, who was taken from the wild as a child for a lifetime of servitude in the circus, is stabbed in the face with the tines of a pitchfork. Annie, who suffers from arthritis like most elephants in captivity, is the last elephant still used in a circus in Britain. The undercover footage also shows ponies and horses who jump backwards as they are kicked and slapped as well as a worker who spits in a camel's face. 
  

 
Four years ago, PETA offered to pay to send Super Circus' owner, Bobby Roberts, to visit The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. We hoped that once he saw the paradise that awaited Annie, he would relent and retire her to sanctuary. The heartless exploiter never responded.

PETA U.K. has contacted the RSPCA asking that Annie be confiscated from the circus, and the group is appealing to the British government to pass a pending bill that would ban the use of wild animals in U.K. circuses. 

While PETA U.K. fights for Annie, you can fight for elephants who are suffering right here in the U.S. Visit RinglingBeatsAnimals.com to learn more about the abuse of animals in circuses and what you can do to help stop it. Every one of those animals needs your help.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus paraded its 3-ton elephants through the streets of Washington, D.C., the animals might have been surprised to be greeted by one of their own. Well, one of our own, to be exact—a giant inflatable elephant, who grabbed a lot of attention from would-be circus attendees.
 

PETA members protest Ringling cruelty in Washington, D.C.

Kids were enchanted by our elephant and eagerly took copies of our comic book "An Elephant's Life" from PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. Parents stopped to talk to the demonstrators and learned how Ringling tears babies away from their mothers and beats them to force them to learn tricks.

What's that, Ringling? You didn't want people to find out about that part? Oops.

Click here to see how you can help stop Ringling's elephant abuse.

Written by Michelle Sherrow 

What do the tigers say when Ringling's trainers get too close? Let us prey. Zing!

Well, this week, PETA's touring "tiger" acted out that devious desire for payback. In Rochester, New York, our "tiger" broke out of his cage and shoved his "ringmaster" in—giving her a taste of her own medicine for our first-ever Tiger's Revenge demonstration.

When tigers aren't performing, they're warehoused like widgets and kept in cages barely bigger than their own bodies. So, it would be justice indeed for Ringling's trainers to know what that feels like.

Our "tiger" taunted the "ringmaster" with whips, a bullhook, and other cruel devices that trainers use to force tigers and elephants to perform cruel, unnatural tricks.

Local citizens held signs letting passersby know that Ringling beats animals. After talking to us, seeing the video, or reading the materials, many people said that they would never patronize such a cruel industry.

Written by Liz Graffeo

Yesterday, I found my dog Henry's "bucket list." He's a pretty open guy, so he won't mind if I share:

1. Get five minutes alone with Michael Vick (that's on my list too)
2. Play Sandy in a community-theater production of Annie
3. Win the Cutest Mutt Alive contest
4. Catch his tail
5. See his dream of a car built for canines come true

While the first four aren't really possible (Henry's a licker, not a fighter; he's too short to play Sandy; he's ineligible for the contest; and, well, he has a stump for a tail), American Honda Motor Company's new Honda Element Concept has made number five happen.

Honda has long been a leader in animal-friendly design, first earning a PETA Proggy Award back in 2005—and the company haven't stopped innovating since.

The new "pupped-out" ride includes a cushioned mesh canine containment system for the cargo area and the back seat; safety pet restraints; a collapsible ramp; spill-proof water bowl; a fan; fur- and leak- resistant seat covers; a dog-bone–patterned rubber mat; and a special leash and dog tag.

Puts the "wow" in "bow wow," right? Tongues would totally wag if you pulled up to your local dog park in a sweet ride like this! But don't worry if buying Honda's doggie-mobile isn't doable for you right now. Your hounds don't care what kind of hoopty you drive. All they care about is hanging out with you.

Henry (Hearts) Honda

Written by Amy Elizabeth

livinggallery / CC

Today, lawyers gave their closing arguments in the court case involving Ringling's use of steel-barbed bullhooks and shackles on the elephants it forces to perform. Over the course of the six-week trial, the following evidence was presented:

• Elephants are chained for an average of more than 26 hours at a time, sometimes for as many as 60–100 hours straight on extended trips. Chained and barely able to take a step, the elephants sway neurotically.
• Kenneth Feld—CEO of Feld Entertainment, the company that owns Ringling—had to admit that he's seen handlers use bullhooks to hit elephants in the secret places where the wounds don't show up as much (i.e., under the chin, behind the ear, and on the back of the leg).
• Ringling's animal behaviorist testified that an elephant who had been struck with a bullhook was seen dripping blood on the arena floor during a show.
• In internal e-mails that came to light, a Ringling veterinary assistant reported, "After this morning's baths, at least 4 of the elephants came in with multiple abrasions and lacerations from the [bull]hooks. … The [lacerations] were very visible …. [A handler] applied … wonder dust just before the show." (Wonder Dust is a gray dressing powder that circus workers can use to conceal bloody bullhook wounds.)
• Another internal report documented that Troy Metzler, a longtime Ringling elephant trainer, struck Angelica, a female Asian elephant, three to five times while she was held in stocks before unloading her and then shocking her with an electric prod.
• Two former Ringling employees, who had previously blown the whistle to PETA, described the abuse that they witnessed while working for the circus, including a violent beating of an elephant that lasted at least 30 minutes.

Check back with the PETA Files in the coming months for an update on the verdict. We hope that the elephants win, but regardless of the outcome, the trial has already generated lots of deservedly negative publicity for this miserable circus. And that's a good thing considering how hard Ringling works to put a misleading, positive spin on clamping elephants in irons, dominating and intimidating them with bullhooks, and confining them to boxcars and arena basements for much of their lives.

Written by Alisa Mullins

As lawyers go, Ringling Bros. has some pretty fancy, expensive ones, but despite their best efforts last week, they couldn't keep the circus from being dragged into the courtroom once again, this time on charges of (surprise, surprise) elephant abuse. Judge Emmet Sullivan announced Thursday that a last ditch attempt by Ringling's attorneys to hold up the proceedings was a "waste of a considerable amount of [the court's] time and resources," and that the case, which was brought by a consortium of animal protection groups and a former Ringling Employee, will go forward. The circus stands accused of violating the Endangered Species Act by "abusively training and disciplining elephants with sharp implements such as bullhooks, by intensively confining and chaining the multi-ton animals for prolonged periods, and by forcibly separating baby elephants from their mothers." Given that the ol' Endangered Species Act doesn't look too kindly on those training practices, it sounds like Ringling's going to be in a world of trouble. 'Cuz that's pretty much all they do.

Jason Bayless, our Lead Circus Monitor (i.e., the dude whose nerve-wracking job it is to follow Ringling Bros. around everywhere and document their abuse of animals), is about to embark on tour with the circus next week, so we fitted him out with a nice new set of wheels that will let circusgoers know exactly what he's there for. Jason's just going to have to rely on his natural charm if he wants to make friends with any of the Ringling employees during the six-month tour—the van itself isn't exactly designed to ease the longstanding tension between PETA and the circus …