Written by PETA
Every year, PETA's offices are flooded with calls about dogs who are relegated to the backyard by guardians who refuse to let them inside. These dogs are left outside in freezing temperatures, often with nothing more than a plastic barrel or a wooden lean-to as shelter from the ice, sleet, and snow. For the last two years, a third-grade class at Samuel Staples Elementary School in Easton, Connecticut, has worked hard to raise funds for PETA's doghouse program, which provides warm homes for lonely backyard dogs. The students donate their leftover lunch money, parts of their allowance—even the quarters that they find in couch cushions. With all their combined change, the students were able to raise more than $800 for dogs last year!
It was such a great idea that TeachKind—PETA's humane-education program, which I coordinate—is launching a brand-new school fundraising program called Change for Chained Dogs.
This program makes it easy for schools to get students active and empower them to make a difference for animals. Every school that signs up gets an introductory letter, stickers, leaflets, and a sign to print out and tape to collection cans. So far, more than 500 schools—including Samuel Staples—have signed up for the fundraiser. It's a great opportunity for students, families, and communities to work together to help dogs in need.
We hope that even more schools will get involved in this exciting program, so if you have kids or know any educators, encourage them to sign up their school to host a Change for Chained Dogs fundraiser! And if you want to make a contribution yourself but don't know any kids, don't worry—you can always donate directly to PETA's doghouse program to help give lonely dogs a warm home this winter.
Written by Liz Graffeo
Joined by some fabulous Bollywood besties, PETA India celebrated its 10th birthday last week with a gala, at which vegan delights abounded and awesome melodies sounded. Hosted by superstars and longtime PETA supporters John Abraham, Hema Malini, Anoushka Shankar, Raveena Tandon, and Atul Kasbekar, the epic event featured performances by Ash Chandler and ishQ Bector, and lucky guests got the best goodie bags ever—cruelty-free chocolates and cosmetics included.
Happy birthday, PETA India!
Written by Logan Scherer
Did you hear about the head-turning, headline-capturing, and climate-defying event that hit D.C. this weekend? No, not the record-breaking blizzard—we're talking about Saturday's opening of "Naked Ambition: 20 Years of PETA's Sexy Celebrity Ads" at the Govinda Gallery in Georgetown.
While many people in the D.C. area were bundled up inside, Twilight star Christian Serratos, who flew in from California to be at the event, was right when she said of the weather, "It will ruin everything but PETA's determination." In fact, the weather seemed to provide PETA campaigner Michelle Cho with some inspiration—to take PETA's campaign back out into the street, where it first started.
Cho, in nothing more than a G-string, was accompanied by an underwear-clad Jack Ryan and Serratos—who remained fully clothed on the insistence of her mother—for a bit of frolicking fun in the snowdrifts just outside the gallery. The three of them literally stopped traffic—monstrous snowplows, to be exact—and captured the attention of plenty of curious onlookers.
Fifty people braved the snowstorm to attend the show, which features photographs of Pamela Anderson, Tyra Banks, Dennis Rodman, Alicia Silverstone, and tons of other celebrities—including, of course, Serratos herself.
The blizzard came and went, but the "Naked Ambition" exhibition will be at the Govinda Gallery until January 9. Holiday road trip, anyone?
When rock deity Chrissie Hynde says "I'll Stand By You," she really means it.
When we told Hynde that we were resurrecting our McCruelty campaign, she pulled out all the stops, starting by unveiling her new "i'm hatin' it" ad in Salt Lake City, where throngs of people were thrilled to see the powerful image. But the folks at Cleveland Outdoor Advertising weren't so thrilled when we submitted the Ohio native's ad to them as a billboard. According to PETA's advertising agent, Cleveland Outdoor Advertising "didn't feel comfortable" with the ad.
Well, often the truth isn't comfortable, and in this case it's painful—scalding, actually. The chickens who are killed by McDonald's suppliers are dumped onto conveyer belts, shackled upside down, and then run through an electrically charged "stun bath" before their throats are cut and they are immersed in defeathering tanks full of scalding-hot water—often while they are still conscious and able to feel pain. Join Chrissie Hynde in urging McDonald's to make it suppliers adopt controlled-atmosphere killing, a less cruel method of slaughter. It would cost the corporation nothing to ask its suppliers to make the switch, which would spare millions of chickens from enduring extreme suffering.
Alarms went off at PETA when we learned that filming for Tom Cruise's upcoming movie, Knight and Day, included the use of live animals to recreate Pamplona's infamous and cruel Running of the Bulls. The Mirror reports that seven bulls used for the production in Spain escaped and injured two women.
We hope that Mr. Cruise will share our concerns when he learns how animals suffer in the annual Running of the Bulls. As human runners and spectators gouge the bulls with sticks and pull their tails, many bulls slip on the pavement and/or slam into buildings, breaking their horns and legs. In their desperate attempts to escape their tormenters, bulls sometimes gore and trample people. As if that weren't enough cruelty, bulls later dragged into the bullrings are repeatedly stabbed and bled to weaken them by bullfighters who sever the animals' spines while the animals are fully conscious.
Will Tom Cruise do as we've asked and use his influence and help bulls by encouraging producers to cut the scene from the film? I believe that PETA's effort is definitely a Mission ImPossible. What do you think?
Updates will follow.
Written by Karin Bennett
Looks like a lot more fun than this:
Written by Shawna Flavell
Celebrate by watching this Creole (not cruel) "Running of the Bulls."
For the first time in nearly 15 years, a human has died after being gored by a bull at the Running of the Bulls.
How many bulls have died this time around as a direct result of being gored by humans?
All of them.
Every year, all bulls who are sent charging down the narrow, winding streets of Pamplona end up in the bullring. We're not talking about one bull here. We're talking hundreds and hundreds over the course of 15 years.
Nobody has died at the Running of the Nudes.
You do the math.
Watch video footage of the Running of the Bulls and goring here.
At a time when protests of the gruesome Running of the Bulls are making a bigger splash than ever, the sagging global economy is apparently taking a toll on the annual festival as well.
It turns out that bombed bull abusers are scaling back their bar tabs. This means fewer euros for merchants during this year's Running of the Bulls. In the past, these businesses have cashed in on the annual torment and killing of hapless, hopeless bulls. But this year, the global recession means that local businesses won't be making as much of a profit from the misery of the bulls.
Not only that, but according to NPR, polls show that most Spaniards have no interest in bullfighting. In Catalonia alone, nearly 200,000 people have signed a petition asking the regional parliament to ban this barbaric "ritual."
While this is hopefully the beginning of the end for an industry that should have died off with the Spanish Empire, you can save money and animals by doing more than simply tightening your belt. Sign up to take that belt—and the rest of your clothes—off altogether as a member of PETA's Action Team. It won't cost a dime, but the potential to raise awareness is priceless.
If our protest in the middle of New York City's Times Square wasn't enough anti-bullfighting action for ya, just wait until you see the pictures from this mother-of-all-protests in Pamplona, Spain, yesterday.
Two hundred "bloodied" and bare bodies from all over the world (I'm not exaggerating—we're talking U.K., Australia, America, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, Austria, Ukraine, Belgium, Norway … you get the idea) gathered outside the Pamplona mayor's office in protest of the horrible abuses that bulls suffer during Pamplona's nine-day festival of San Fermín.
Before the Running of the Bulls, workers use electric prods and sharp sticks to rile the bulls into a frenzy. Then, the bulls are often debilitated with tranquilizers and beaten before being taken into the bullfighting ring—where they are repeatedly speared with banderillas (barb-tipped wooden daggers) before being stabbed to death.
Help us put an end to this bloodbath.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
Follow PETA on Twitter!