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When historians finally compile the collected correspondence of Ingrid Newkirk, Britney Spears, and Kevin Federline into a bound, faux-leather 3-volume set, this one's going to be one of the highlights, in my humble opinion. Yesterday, PETA's president faxed the following missive to K-Fed asking him to please remember that Britney's unlimited capacity for neglect extends to canines too.

As I may have mentioned before, Britney has an extremely unpleasant habit of stopping by the pet store on the way back from the wigmaker's (or wherever it is she spends her time these days) to pick up new puppies, drag them around until she gets sick of them, and then abandon them. Well, since she hasn't exactly been taking good care of her children either, we think it's only reasonable that she let them bring their companion animals along when they go to K-Fed. You can read Ingrid's letter below.

Update: Click here to read PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s Op-Ed in The Virginian Pilot about why PETA brought Vick into the office.

Contrary to recent news reports, there is absolutely no agreement with Michael Vick to appear in a PETA public service announcement. However, we are in discussion with his representatives to do a PSA that would take the issue of dogfighting head on, dogfighter to dogfighter. But it would be under the strictest of guidelines. The script we discussed was:

If Vick were to do this, we would be very pleased. Short of that, it’s not happening. But what do you think? Should Michael Vick do a PSA directed at potential dogfighters to send the message that if you fight dogs, you will lose everything?

In 2006, a whistleblower at Vanderbilt University tipped PETA off to reports that a Vanderbilt experimenter named Jeffrey D. Schall was performing brain surgery on unanesthetized macaque monkeys. The whistleblower also forwarded us an email that had been sent to the department that included what was essentially a friendly reminder to researchers not to forget about anesthesia before drilling into these terrified animals' heads.

Vanderbilt has been on our radar for a long time, and Schall has long been known in the animal protection community as one of the most vile torturers in the business. In 2005, Vanderbilt was cited for 13 violations of the Animal Welfare Act, and Schall was suspended for a month after performing an unauthorized surgery and withholding water from a monkey. One monkey, called Lil' Wayne, died after seven days without anything to drink. In a separate incident, Schall threatened an animal care technician for reporting to the university veterinarian that an animal's collar had become entangled with the bottom bars of the cage, where he had become trapped.

We have been working for some time now to expose Vanderbilt's abysmal animal welfare record, and I will keep you updated as this case progresses. In the meantime, please take a moment to contact Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos at this e-mail address to request that Schall be be asked to resign. It won't solve all the problems at Vanderbilt, but it’d be a start.

Click here to read more about this case in Vanderbilt's paper.

Rawr!

Remember what Pam Anderson said a few months ago about the whole Uggs craze?

Well, Pam dug the original Uggs out of her closet and offered them to us to help draw attention to the cruelty involved in the Australian wool industry (Uggs are made of Australian sheep skins), and this is where you come in. We want to hear your best ideas on how to use them to bring attention to this important issue. Feel free to post your ideas as comments or send them to me directly. We’ll announce the best idea on the blog in couple of weeks.

Here are a couple of my own ideas to get you started, though admittedly these aren’t the most exciting.

1. Offer them to the Hard Rock Café to be displayed along with Pam’s quote.
2. Use them in some kind of demo with the slogan being “Give Cruelty the Boot”
3. Use them in an ad saying “Uggs . . . Australian for Cruelty”

Well to be fair, this is more of a Part 1-revisited, so if you totally understood the story the first time, feel free to browse through the archives (maybe cast your vote for this week's Vivisector of the Week), but if you had some questions about the whole thing, here's a quick guide to PETA's reasoning behind providing Michael Vick with information about why animals deserve respect, and some key facts about how it all went down:

1. PETA believes that almost anyone can come to understand that animals are capable of suffering and deserve respect, if given a chance. If we didn't, we'd have a pretty hard time getting up in the morning. Only time will tell whether Michael Vick ends up being one of those people.
2. We made it clear both to Michael Vick and the judge that, given the crimes Vick has admitted to, he needs to serve hard time and be banned from any contact with animals. We're glad he paid attention when we gave him information about treating animals with kindness, but the guy still needs to go to prison.
3. This is not a race issue. We don't care if he's orange.
4. This is not a race issue. White people who fight dogs need to fry.
5. This is not a race issue. Are you deaf, or just desperate?
6. We need to give offenders a chance to open their hearts, eyes, and minds to the suffering they've caused. We would not be doing our jobs properly if we spent all day preaching to the choir.
7. Vick is working with children. This makes it all the more important that we arm him with facts about respect for animals and how to treat them.
8. After he took the course, Michael Vick pointed out that NFL players have a bad record of violence and said that he wished he'd taken it years ago. So do we. That's why we're pushing the NFL to include a similar course in empathy for animals for all of its new players.

I hope that clears a few things up. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions at all.

It’s not like we need another reason to boycott the Australian wool industry, what with mulesing and live export and all that already. But as if those things aren’t bad enough, I just learned that to keep the wool very fine and soft, some Australian farmers actually keep their sheep inside giant warehouses in individual pens that are kind of a cross between veal crates and battery cages.

Here’s a story about it, if you’re interested reading more. And more importantly, here is a link to our campaign to clean up the Australian wool industry once and for all.

I have a feeling that a lot of people would have been pretty surprised if they'd seen Michael Vick walking into PETA's offices recently—not once but three times. You'd think that would be the very last place on Earth he would consider spending time. But it happened, and here's how it came about: After Vick pleaded guilty to dogfighting charges, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk—a great believer in hammering away at the seemingly impossible—contacted him to ask him to hear about animals’ feelings, needs, and desires, and to hear firsthand why people are so outraged by the suffering of the dogs fought and killed in Bad Newz Kennels dogfighting pits. Vick confirmed our belief that he had never before been exposed to this kind of information, and, after a formal preliminary meeting at PETA HQ—during which we reiterated that we're still seeking a strong jail sentence and a lifetime ban on contact with animals—he left with study materials. He returned on September 18 to take an 8-hour course in empathy and animal protection. No cell phones allowed, no going out for lunch, just learning.

The full course that Vick took, which includes homework, workshop outlines, videos, and supplemental course materials, as well as the exam questions Michael Vick returned to answer under his tutor’s watchful eye, is available here. The class included scientific evidence that animals are thinking, feeling beings, capable of a range of behavior and emotions; presentations on the specific needs of dogs; and information about the well-documented link between acts of violence against animals and crimes against humans, which PETA shares with law enforcement officers every week.

I know people can see red when it comes to any mention of Vick, so I do want to be extremely clear about our position here: While we’re pleased to have been able to show Vick facts about animals—many things he’d certainly never heard before in his life—we are in no way going to bat for him. He may have passed our empathy course, but we have asked the judge to send him to jail and bar him from ever possessing or having contact with animals. We believe anyone who might consider abusing animals should see exactly how much a known animal abuser stands to lose.

We've also sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urging him to make our “Developing Empathy for Animals” course a requirement for all NFL players. To help persuade Goodell to make humane education a part of the NFL's basic training for players, please click here.

Following Houston's decision to ban Alicia Silverstone's sexy pro-vegetarianism PSA, one PETA Lettuce Lady took it upon herself to make a personal plea to Texas Governor Rick Perry to encourage Texans to go vegetarian. When the top "fattest cities" in America were announced this year, Texas had four cities in the top ten, so if there's anyone who needs a bit of urgent advice about a healthy diet, it's the good folks in the Lone Star State.

Texas, you've been a very naughty state. But nobody wants to hear that kind of talk from me when they can get it from a lovely Lettuce Lady. Check out the amazing video that the wonderful Nicole Matthews sent to Texas' governor today. How can you say no to this one, Rick?

Now that you've watched the video, please click here to sign our petition asking Governor Rick Perry to get on board with our "Go Veg Texas" Campaign.