DMX's album art leaves little doubt as to where he stands on cruelty to pit bulls

The indictment came after reports that dogs were being abused on his property in August led authorities to search his home, where they seized 12 pit bulls and found the bodies of three others buried on his property. I can't say that I'm all that shocked about this arrest, given that DMX has used his music to glorify dogfighting in songs like "Dog Match", where he talks about how his dogs "love to fight" (which is eerily reminiscent of all those folks who've been claiming that horses "love to race" in the wake of Eight Belles' death at the Kentucky Derby).

We've contacted the prosecutor in this case asking him to ensure that, if DMX is convicted, he's given the maximum jail sentence, a ban on owning animals, and mandatory psychiatric counseling. I'll keep you posted.

Following the dust stirred up by PETA and the national outrage about the very public death of Eight Belles from two snapped ankle bones, our appeals to the horseracing industry to make far-reaching changes in its practices have begun to have a noticeable effect. An article in The Wall Street Journal today quoted Alex Waldrop, the president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) as saying, "It is clear that the status quo is not an option. We have to stop identifying problems and start implementing solutions."

Which, well, Amen to that. Some changes have already begun to be implemented, including a prominent horse auction company which has “instructed agents and breeders to discourage jockeys from whipping horses during a coming sales show,” citing the negative press generated by animal rights organizations as its reason for implementing the policy. What goes on behind the scenes, from whipping to doping, is another matter. Time will tell if major changes are adopted by the NTRA, and how effective and far-reaching they are, but the grave concerns about the long list of cruel and shady practices of this dirty industry—which PETA has been raising for decades—are finally beginning to be addressed.

It’s certainly too bad that it took another death of a popular horse during a televised racing event to scare the industry into recognizing that people are leaving the track in droves, but we’ll call this “better late than never” and keep our eyes firmly on the industry to ensure that these promises are more than just talk.

There’s been a lot of talk about the arrest of 75 San Diego State University students in a drug sting recently, and now that the dust has settled a little bit, we figured it was a good time to let students at the university know why eating meat is far worse for you than smoking pot. We just placed an ad in the school newspaper The Daily Aztec, which shows a close-up of a cow's face next to the tagline "Say No to Pot Roast. Don't Be a Meathead. Kick the Habit!" The ad points out that, while there’s no doubt that getting high can hurt your test scores, people who want to stay away from drugs should stay away from meat, which is often loaded with pesticide residues, hormones, and antibiotics. Meat, egg, and dairy-product consumption have also been linked to heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and cancer. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it,

So there you have it, kids. Say “no” to pot roast.

I love the tagline for this new ad, which features Tricia Helfer—star of the hit Sci-Fi Channel show Battlestar Galactica. Tricia plays a ruthless cylon robot on BSG, but I know for a fact that she’s very different in real life. You wouldn’t, for instance, find a ruthless robot donating their time to pose with a kitty cat to encourage people to treat their animals humanely. Unless, like, they had some devious ulterior motives, like world domination. Which is definitely not the case with Tricia—she just really cares about animals. You can watch our interview with Tricia here, and enter to win seasons 1-3 of the show, along with the movie Razor on DVD.

The ad is absolutely stunning—that’s Tricia’s pal Mr. Nix on the left.

Shortly after the North Carolina Department of Agriculture announced that it was launching an operation to transfer the animals out of All Creatures Great and Small this month following the release of a seven-month long PETA undercover investigation which revealed nightmarish conditions at the no-kill shelter, our Cruelty Investigations Department received the following e-mail from the investigator who had last spent time on the inside at ACGS, confirming that it was all worth it:

Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 6:14 PM
Subject: Heroes

Hello all-

I talked a bit yesterday about the ad we have running during the Westminster Dog Show, which is like a great big frat party for dog breeders, but what I didn’t mention was that we also had a team on the ground waiting to greet attendees, and inform passersby exactly what the breeding industry means for animals. The demonstration—which involved body bags to symbolize the millions of homeless animals who won’t be getting a mention at the dog show and signs reading “Breeders kill shelter dogs' chances”—was a big success, and the pics are really striking. Here’s what PETA VP Daphna Nachminovitch had to say about the protest: