In my first year working at a grossly substandard animal shelter in Maryland, I forced myself to go in early to euthanize dogs by holding them in my arms and gently helping them escape an uncaring world without trauma or pain and to spare them from being stabbed haphazardly—while they were fully conscious, terrified and aware—in the general vicinity of their hearts with needles blunt from reuse and left to thrash on the floor until they finally died by the callous people who would arrive later to do the job.

I always wonder how anyone cannot recognize that there is a world of difference between painlessly euthanizing animals out of compassion—aged, injured, sick, and dying animals whose guardians can't afford euthanasia, for instance—as PETA does, and causing them to suffer terror, pain, and a prolonged death while struggling to survive on the streets, at the hands of untrained and uncaring "technicians," or animal abusers.

Diamond was suffering from a painful facial tumor that was slowly eating away at his face

Sasha had a severely infected bite wound.

It's easy to point the finger at those who are forced to do the "dirty work" caused by a throwaway society's casual acquisition and breeding of dogs and cats who end up homeless and unwanted, but at PETA, we will never turn our backs on neglected, unloved, and homeless animals—even if the best we can offer them is a painless release from a world that doesn't have enough heart or homes with room for them. It makes it easy for people to throw stones at us, but we are against all needless killing: for hamburgers, fur collars, dissection, sport hunting, the works. PETA handled far more animals than 2,069 in 2012. In fact, we took in more than 10,000 dogs and cats and work very hard to persuade people to spay and neuter their animals and to commit to a lifetime of care and respect for them. We go so far as to transport animals to and from our spay/neuter clinics, where they are spayed or neutered and given vet care, often for free! Since 2001, PETA's low- to no-cost spay-and-neuter mobile clinics, SNIP and ABC, have sterilized more than 50,000 animals, preventing hundreds of thousands of animals from being born, neglected, abandoned, abused, or euthanized when no one wanted them. And on a national level, PETA is focusing on the root of the problem through our Animal Birth Control (ABC) campaign.

Big Girl was still alive when a field worker found her

If anyone has a good home, love, and respect to offer, we beg them: Go to a shelter and take one or two animals home. The problem is that few people do that, choosing instead to go to a breeder or a pet shop and not "fixing" their dogs and cats, which contributes to the high euthanasia rate that animal shelters face. Most of the animals we took in and euthanized could hardly be called "pets," as they had spent their lives chained up in the back yard, for instance. They were unsocialized, never having been inside a building of any kind or known a pat on the head. Others were indeed someone's, but they were aged, sick, injured, dying, too aggressive to place, and the like, and PETA offered them a painless release from suffering, with no charge to their owners or custodians.

Every day, PETA's fieldworkers help abused and neglected dogs—many of them pit bulls nowadays and many of them forced to live their lives on chains heavy enough to tow an 18-wheeler—by providing them with food; clean water; lightweight tie-outs; deworming medicine; flea, tick, and fly-strike prevention; free veterinary care; sturdy wooden doghouses stuffed with straw bedding; and love.

What we see is enough to make you lose faith in humanity. One pit bull we gained custody of, named Asia, looked like a skeleton covered with skin when PETA released her from the 15-pound chain she had been kept on for years. Asia suffered from three painful and deadly intestinal obstructions, which prevented her from keeping any food down. She faced an agonizing, lingering death, so our veterinarian recommended euthanasia to end her suffering. We pursued criminal charges against those responsible for her condition, leading to their conviction for cruelty to animals. That is just one of the dozens of cases we see every week.

The majority of adoptable dogs are never brought through our doors (we refer them to local adoption groups and walk-in animal shelters). Most of the animals we house, rescue, find homes for, or put out of their misery come from miserable conditions, which often lead to successful prosecution and the banning of animal abusers from ever owning or abusing animals again.

Santana had facial injuries so serious that his right eye was swollen shut and his jaw was ripped and hanging

This dog was suffering from advanced cancer

As long as animals are still purposely bred and people aren't spaying and neutering their companions, open-admission animal shelters and organizations like PETA must do society's dirty work. Euthanasia is not a solution to overpopulation but rather a tragic necessity given the present crisis. PETA is proud to be a "shelter of last resort," where animals who have no place to go or who are unwanted or suffering are welcomed with love and open arms.

Please, if you care about animals, help prevent more of them from being born only to end up chained and left to waste away in people's back yards, suffering on mean streets where people kick at them or shoo them away like garbage, tortured at the hands of animal abusers, or, alas, euthanized in animal shelters for lack of a good home. If you want to save lives, always have your animals spayed or neutered.

See more about how PETA saves animals.

Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk

While Hurricane Sandy's gale-force winds rattled buildings and its driving rain flooded roads, most people probably weren't thinking about spaying and neutering animals. But that's exactly what the folks who staff PETA's Mobile Clinics Division (MCD) program were thinking. Natural disasters should strengthen our resolve to spay and neuter because fewer unwanted animals born means fewer stray animals left to suffer on the streets.

Despite not being able to provide low-cost spay-and-neuter services in the middle of the hurricane—or over the Thanksgiving holiday, when people had other things on their minds—the MCD team altered almost 700 animals in November—699, to be exact.

Here are just a few of them: 

This dear pit bull's guardian is undergoing cancer treatment and wasn't able to take her dog to the vet. PETA got Sasha spayed, vaccinated, and back home again to comfort her guardian.

Morgan and Beanie might not have been as desperate to be spayed as they were to get cookies—but fortunately, they got both.

Teepee was already in heat, so her guardian knew that there was no time to waste. We quickly got Teepee spayed before she could add to the overpopulation crisis.

In just one year, one unspayed cat can give birth to 16 kittens and an unspayed dog can produce 12 puppies. Please help us stem the animal-homelessness crisis by supporting your local spay-and-neuter initiatives.

After three decades of treating patients, Dr. Drew Pinsky knows a thing or two about curing problems. And as one of the most listened-to physicians in America, he's prescribing the perfect remedy for the animal homelessness crisis: spaying and neutering. Along with his two dogs, Daisy and Lulu, Dr. Drew shot a new ad for PETA asking everyone to be a part of the cure:

At yesterday's unveiling of the ad outside the CNN studios in Los Angeles, he told the throng of reporters and fans:

"This is a really important campaign for me; something easy to get behind. All of us should get behind it. Eight million homeless pets in this country, four million (only half of them) ever get adopted. … If we are responsible enough to adopt a pet, we've got to be responsible enough to get them spayed or neutered."

The Sam Simon Foundation, which provides dogs and cats in the Los Angeles area with free and low-cost sterilization, distributed vouchers for free spay and neuter surgeries.

As Dr. Drew put it, "So now there's no reason not to include this in the healthcare of your animals." Join Dr. Drew in helping to end the animal homelessness crisis: Always spay and neuter. 

Our servicemembers aren't the only ones who make sacrifices for our freedom. Their companion animals often endure frequent moves, months of not seeing one of their beloved guardians, and all the other hardships that come with life in the military. To celebrate Independence Day, PETA honored the loyal four-legged companions of servicemembers in Southeastern Virginia by offering to spay or neuter and vaccinate them for just $4 each.

Partnering with the Virginia Beach SPCA (VBSPCA), one of our mobile veterinary clinics performed the spay and neuter surgeries, and the VBSPCA administered the vaccinations. Here are just a few photos from this event, after which many military mutts and freedom felines can now declare their independence from unwanted litters and many health problems: 

A round of applause, please. A new AP-Petside poll reveals that more than half of companion-animal guardians adopted their animals, with one-third of people taking in strays off the streets and another third adopting animals from shelters, rather than buying them from breeders or pet stores, which contribute to the animal homelessness crisis.

Looks like the word has gotten out about the irresistible allure of saving a life, thanks in part to the help of stars like Twilight cutie Booboo Stewart, who stars in a new ad for PETA with his rescued dog, Pookie.

Photo: Shawn Bannon • Grooming: Kirin Bhatty • Wood: © iStockphoto.com/Robert Churchill

As Seth Clearwater, Stewart made audiences cheer when he saved Edward and Bella by taking out vampire baddie Riley Biers, but now people will be cheering about the lives he's saving off-screen.

Whether you're Team Edward or Team Jacob, you can help animals by taking PETA's pledge to end animal homelessness today.

Did you know that in Ukraine, a dog or cat found wandering the streets can be shot on sight or poisoned and left to suffer? Their bodies are tossed into a cremation truck and burned, and some are reportedly burned while alive. It is estimated that in the city of Kiev alone, 20,000 dogs have already been killed in these cruel ways.

Ukrainian authorities are trying to "cleanse" the country of homeless animals before it hosts the European Football Championship in 2012. At a preliminary match between Germany and Ukraine in Kiev last weekend, members of PETA Germany and the Kiev Society for the Protection of Animals protested, calling on Ukrainian authorities to stop the cruel killings and asking the Union of European Football Associations to get involved.

Many German soccer (known as "football" in other parts of the world) players have now joined PETA Germany in publicly criticizing Ukrainian authorities for the torture of these dogs and demanding that the city use humane methods to manage the homeless animal crisis. The only solution to animal overpopulation is a spay-and-neuter initiative, but in the meantime, the city's unwanted animals at least deserve a peaceful, painless end to their lives.

Please contact the Ukrainian Embassy and politely urge officials to stop these cruel killings immediately. Click here for the e-mail address for your state, or if your state is not listed, you can call 202-333-0606.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

After buying a dog over the Internet sight unseen for a staggering $7,500, a Long Island man added insult to injury by sending the dog on a terrifying 3,000-mile journey back to the breeder in Washington state less than a week later. The dog, who was likely confused and disoriented after the initial cross-country flight, had failed to adjust immediately to her strange new environment, so the man essentially returned her like a sweater he'd ordered from L.L.Bean, despite the fact that the breeder refused to take the dog back and reportedly said that he would not pick her up at the airport. (The breeder did eventually claim the dog but only after she'd been forced to spend the night at an airport boarding facility.)

The dog buyer could have saved himself a lot of trouble—and the dog a lot of trauma—if he had just taken his family to the local animal shelter, where they could have chosen from among a plethora of great dogs. But considering that he was dumb enough to hand over an exorbitant amount of money to a breeding operation that exacerbates the animal homelessness crisis, allowed the dog only six days to settle into her new home, and was inconsiderate enough to ship her off to an unknown fate in an airplane's dangerous cargo hold after tiring of her, any responsible shelter worker would now lock the doors to this man.

But for those of us who don't view animals as disposable accessories, animal shelters are the perfect place to make a permanent love connection.

Written by Michelle Sherrow 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just responded to PETA's letter to Janet Napolitano urging the DHS to adopt dogs from animal shelters for its canine program instead of turning to breeders, and there is good news.

The DHS will now not only accept dogs from animal shelters for its program (provided they meet the criteria), it is encouraging animal rescue facilities to submit proposals for their eligible dogs. Candidates must be:

• Twelve to 36 months old
• Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, German shepherds, Dutch shepherds, or Belgian Malinois
• Alert, active, outgoing, and confident
• Able to pass a series of tests for courage and toughness

PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk has helped place many dogs from animal shelters in mutually beneficial service positions that allow the dogs to live at home with their handlers when they aren't working, that teach dogs using positive reinforcement and respect, that provide excellent veterinary care, and that "retire" dogs to live with their handlers when they become old or unable to work—all criteria that the DHS has assured PETA that it meets.

One of these dogs was Kirk (named after Ingrid), the partner of Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police officer Thomas Delahanty. Kirk was with Officer Delahanty when Delahanty was shot during John Hinckley Jr.'s attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. There was a fabulous retirement party for Officer Delahanty and Kirk, attended by many beloved K-9 dogs and their human partners, complete with dog-paddling in a backyard swimming pool.

"Working" dogs who are treated well can live fulfilling, interesting lives, and PETA encourages animal shelters and breed-rescue groups to submit proposals to the DHS for their eligible dogs to:

Att: Unsolicited Proposal Officer
Training and Development Division
Program Directorate
Office of Procurement
Customs and Border Protection Agency
1310 PA Ave, NW
Washington DC

Posted by Lindsay Pollard-Post