Thanks for all of your wonderful comments on this Win It Wednesday. The winners of the 'Tofu Never Screams' Tote and Tee are Mike Hoyt, Annie, and Kelly. Congratulations!

It's almost time for Halloween: my favorite holiday. Every year, I'm eager to gorge on vegan Swedish Fish Sea Kittens and decide on a costume.

This year, I've been thinking about going as Evil Ronald McDonald, with frizzed-out red hair, a hatchet, and a blood-splattered yellow jumpsuit—all topped off with PETA's Ronald mask.

Now PETA's quirky "Tofu Never Screams" tee and tote, which just happen to be this week's "Win It" Wednesday prize, have me thinking about a second costume idea. I may finally have a perfect use for that big, horrible block of Styrofoam in my hall closet.

How do you win one of this week's prize packages? Share your most creative, animal-friendly costume idea and the tote (perfect for carrying home that mountain of candy) and the T-shirt can be yours.

The contest ends on October 14, 2009, and we'll choose the three most creative comments as winners on October 16, 2009. Be sure to read our privacy policy and terms and conditions, as you're agreeing to both by commenting. Good luck!

Written by Karin Bennett

fredericknewspost / CC

This past June, a Maryland man, David Beers, who sought revenge against a couple who had asked him to leave their property, admitted that after leaving the couple's yard in a huff, he later returned and snatched their 18-month-old dog, Zoey. Beers drove off with Zoey and then hurled the four-pound dog out of the passenger side window of his car and over the side of a bridge. Her tiny body was never found.

When we first heard about the story, we wrote to the prosecutor and pushed for vigorous prosecution of Beers. We also asked that Beers be required to undergo a psychological evaluation and receive counseling and also be prohibited from having animals.

Now Beers is headed to court and faces a felony aggravated cruelty-to-animals charge, which could mean three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Zoey's death is a reminder of the dangers that await dogs who are tethered outside or are allowed to roam unsupervised. Please, don't ever take chances with your pooch's well-being—and always take a moment to educate others who might not know any better.

Written by Karin Bennett

Still don't have a Halloween costume? Too tall to pass for a Trollsen Twin? Take a tip from PETA VP Dan Mathews: be the Colonel.

"Impersonating a scary guy like Colonel Sanders at Halloween is a great way to get a PETA point across at parties and become a frontrunner in costume contests," says Mathews, shown in the accompanying photos in his anti-KFC get-up. KFC is a total house of horrors after all—and our depictions of the colonel are terrifying enough to go along with Saw V. So, why not take advantage of KFC's hideousness and make a gloriously scary Halloween costume? All you need is a white suit and a bloody bucket!

Conveniently, printable versions are available for you to make your very own bucket of blood to accessorize your costume.

Yikes! Terrifying, no? It's a little scary how well Dan pulls that off … of course, he does have experience—no, not as a chicken torturer! In costumes and as a model! Sheesh.

Only eight days left until Halloween! Better get cracking with the corn syrup and red food coloring—you want to have enough blood, don't you?

Written by Amanda Schinke

Deflocked, baby. Deflocked.

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

Since the Halloween season is upon us and all that, I wanted to share this bit of Halloween trivia with you. Zombies hate KFC. Seriously, they hate it. In fact, they hate it so much that they held a protest at a KFC in Moscow, ID, with signs reading “I’d Rather Be Dead Than Eat at KFC”. Unfortunately for this group of zombies, their photographer only got shots of their signs reading “Aurgh Graun Uargh”. But you get the idea. If you’d like to do your own zombie-themed KFC demo, click here.

And since you asked . . . No, I am not dressing up for Halloween. In fact, I’d rather go naked than dress up for Halloween.

Much as it hurts my pride to get scooped by The Dog Blog on a topic, I’m man enough to admit when I’ve been beaten to the punch. PETA’s resident dog blogger, KP, just posted a great entry about a series of ads put out by the Southern Hope Humane Society in Georgia. The campaign, called “Don’t Get a Dog,” has the simple message that if you can’t take care of an animal, you shouldn’t frickin’ have one. It’s nothing short of tragic that this point isn’t immediately obvious to some people, but I’ve seen enough dogs chained in backyards or crated inside someone’s house that I’m very aware of just how important these ads are. Good stuff, Southern Hope.

You may remember that a couple of years ago, we went after Cindy Crawford for agreeing to appear in ads wearing fur. Doing furry ads is bad enough, but Crawford had actually once posed for PETA’s Fur Campaign and even signed a statement declaring that she would speak up for animals by refusing to wear fur. Shortly after we raised a stink, Crawford crawled back under her rock and we hadn’t heard from her since. Actually, nobody had heard from her; it’s not like there’s much decent work for morally bankrupt washed-up former models out there.

Well it looks like Crawford finally scored another gig. She just showed up on the cover of the November issue of Russian Vogue wearing what appears to be an entire family of dead animals on her back. Since Crawford is so desperate for her mole-ridden face to be seen, maybe it’s time to bring back the poster we used last time . . .

Oklahoma ranks close to the top nationally in the number of breeders currently doing their dirty work in the state, and The Tulsa World recently featured a fascinating investigation into Oklahoma’s culture of breeding, from the hideous puppy millers to the other vile breeders, who parade their sickly “pedigree” animals around and worry about their posture, while they completely ignore the fact that the miserable animals are languishing in hutches and cages not fit for a rock, let alone a living, breathing animal. Much like the shelter animals down the road from them, who will die because these people have chosen to make their living bringing more dogs into a country that has millions more than it can handle.

It’s all a little depressing, but definitely worth checking out—particularly this video, which shows the legal conditions that licensed breeders keep their animals in, because the USDA has told them it’s “acceptable.”

On a much more positive note, The Chicago Tribune is holding a contest to pick Chicago’s most beautiful dog. If you’re a dog lover, a Chicagoan, or just someone with an interest in canine aesthetics, you can go check it out here, but be sure to vote for a mutt. Because everybody loves a mutt.

As I mentioned before, we're pretty effing displeased with Denny's restaurants at the moment, since the company has jumped into bed with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, who, in addition to being documented animal abusers, are seriously among the sleaziest bunch of people anyone could ever hope to do business with (for a little background on that claim, check out this recent article from the Huffington Post).

But yeah. The point is that Denny's needs to find themselves another corporate partnership ASAP, and until they do, we'll be letting them know about it on the daily. Here's a pic from a recent demonstration in New York. Thanks to all the activists who came out!

Remember Dan Mathews’ trip to Australia for the launch of his book Committed: A Rabble Rouser’s Memoir there? Well, here’s a great profile that came out yesterday from a huge Australian gay and lesbian website called Same Same. There's a kickass video at the end too.