So this was a pretty cool thing to watch unfold: About a month ago, a colleague of mine posted a personal ad on Craigslist under the name Misty, with the title "Ready to have fun." The single males in the area who clicked on the ad got the following pitch:

Turns out a lot of dudes were ready to have fun, too. The ad got hundreds of responses, some of which were very sensitive and caring (though a good number of them were just kind of pornographic). But all seekers were directed to http://www.myspace.com/misty_love_xo, where they met Misty herself, a bowlegged pit bull who spends her life chained to a barrel in North Carolina.

Not everybody had a sense of humor about the whole thing, but a lot of the guys were pretty cool about it, and some even offered to help. (Of course a few people never figured out that this was a stunt and just thought Misty was some girl who was really into her dog, but the less said about those dudes the better.) The Boston Herald picked up the story, which you can read here. Anyway, I thought that was a pretty innovative way of raising some awareness about chained dogs, so, I dunno, hooray for us.

PETA held a press conference today in Richmond to announce our new video PSA about the practice of chaining dogs. Before I started doing this animal stuff professionally, it just wouldn't have occurred to me that so many dogs spend their entire lives chained to old tires or barrels in someone's backyard. You kind of have to see it for yourself to get an idea of exactly how much that sucks when it snows. Anyway, before I start getting all sappy and rhetorical about this, here's the video. The young lady who narrated it for us lost her 2-year-old cousin last year to a pair of chained dogs who had become aggressive.