Little Tess and Amelia weren't always sitting so pretty.

They were rescued during PETA's investigation of U.S. Global Exotics (USGE), a massive exotic-animal dealer that denied the animals it warehoused veterinary care, adequate space, ventilation, heat, and even adequate food and water. Tess's and Amelia's luck changed when they were seized from USGE, along with 26,000 other animals.

They found a home with a PETA member replete with love, toys, treats, and a thousand comfy places where a hamster can curl up and spend a relaxing afternoon.

Good news out of New York: Following September's flood in which nearly 100 animals died when they were left to drown, PETCO has announced that its Johnson City store will not sell any animals upon reopening this month. The announcement is music to the ears of Johnson City residents, dozens of whom joined a PETA-led demonstration last September aimed at keeping PETCO from reopening. 

This decision will save many animals from being bred and warehoused to supply the store, which seems appropriate considering all those terrified animals who perished in the dark, cold waters. But PETCO still doesn't deserve our business until it does the right thing and stops selling animals in all its stores nationwide, given the neglect and cruelty that occur at those locations and that are rife within the chain's animal suppliers, in addition to the fact that the animal-homelessness crisis—which PETCO itself cites at its dog and cat adoption events—affects the very species the chain sells, too.

Kudos to Johnson City for forging such progress for animals in the pet trade from the devastation that struck there. And remember, folks—there's still a criminal investigation pending concerning the events leading up to those animals' horrible deaths …

How You Can Help Animals in Pet Stores

Please buy supplies for your companions only from retailers that do not sell animals.

The new year is already looking a bit brighter for animals: A PETCO store in Dickson City, Pennsylvania, has announced that it will close permanently on January 1—which is great news for the hamsters, gerbils, mice, fish, and other small animals who suffer and die every day in PETCO's stores and suppliers' facilities.

"Life" for the animals PETCO sells often consists of struggling to survive wild capture or captive breeding in horrific conditions, suffering from untreated injuries and illnesses, and fighting for food in feces-strewn, severely crowded cages. At the massive breeding mills that supply live animals to the pet trade, PETA investigations have revealed sick and dying animals placed in freezers to die, live hamsters placed in a plastic bag and bashed against a table in an attempt to kill them, animals deprived of veterinary care and left to cannibalize their cagemates' corpses, and other horrors.

For the sake of small animals, please say "No" to PETCO and other stores that sell animals.

Marina Avila / CC by 2.0

PETA filed a formal complaint today with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) calling for an immediate investigation into painful, deadly, and, we believe, illegal veterinary vaccine potency tests on hamsters at Colorado Serum Company (CSC) in Denver.

The persistent folks in PETA's Regulatory Testing Division have repeatedly written and called CSC to make sure its officials are aware that in 2006 the USDA approved a non-animal test in place of an obsolete and lethal method of using hamsters to test the Leptospira vaccine. The Animal Welfare Act states that the use of animals should only be approved when alternatives are not available, but CSC is killing hundreds of hamsters a year, without providing them with any pain relief—more than 1,850 of them in just the past four years.

And catch this: According to CSC's annual reports, the company "found no new information which would allow for a change in our approach to these issues," even though a simple Web search would have clued someone in. In fact, CSC has done nothing but copy the same information that it used in 2004 to justify its use of animals into every report through 2009!

We'll keep on top of this case. If you're sick of pointless cruelty to animals or want to know more about superior test methods, check this out.

Written by Jeff Mackey

cdrussorusoo / CC by 2.0

Court proceedings are underway that will decide the fate of dozens of animals who were recently seized from a Chattanooga pet store after an employee, Ashley Knight, went to officials at McKamey Animal Center to allege ongoing abuse and neglect at the store. Knight has testified that store manager Brandy Hallman threw a live hamster into a garbage compactor after the animal fought with a cagemate.

When shelter officials visited the store along with a representative of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, they reportedly seized the animals after apparently discovering that many of them were suffering from disease, heat, and lack of water, leaving them dehydrated and stressed. McKamey director Karen Walsh testified that they found one miserable dog in the store's poorly ventilated isolation area for sick animals standing in a cage that was filled with "voluminous diarrhea."

We'll continue to follow this trial closely, and we hope that you'll join us not only in wishing for justice to be served in this case but also in helping to prevent other animals from enduring such miseries by never, ever shopping at pet stores.

Written by Jeff Mackey

This week, PETA released never-before-seen footage from our three-month investigation of Sun Pet Ltd.—an Atlanta-based supplier of small mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and other animals to stores nationwide, including PETCO and PetSmart. In the shocking video, a Sun Pet worker is seen slamming hamsters against a table in an attempt to kill them—evidently because they were deemed unsalable. At least one of the hamsters was still alive for several minutes afterward, panting in the sealed plastic bag.

Not surprisingly, Sun Pet has released a video of its own, showing conditions for the animals at its Atlanta small-animal breeding farm. It doesn't look all that great to us.

Thank you, Sun Pet, for helping PETA show the world the sort of hellish warehouses that PETCO and PetSmart's animals come from! We are not quite sure which part is supposed to serve as a response to PETA's allegations. Is it the footage of the animals who were crammed into pitch-black, tomb-like bins and wire cages; the footage of the animals who were being packed up for shipping as if they were inanimate objects; the footage of the chinchilla cages that the Georgia Department of Agriculture last month found to be in violation of the law; the footage of the fecal matter that was all over the small animals' bedding; or the footage of the rabbits who were being kept in tiny, barren wire cages with no bedding to protect their tender feet?

In its written response to PETA's video, Sun Pet says that it has dismissed the employee in the video. That's a start—but it's not enough. The manager who approved of the hamster-bashing is apparently still punching the clock down at Sun Pet. That's the same manager who said that one could throw mice against a wall and suggested that PETA's investigator expose small animals' testicles by poking and prodding away at their abdomens as if they were PlayStation controllers.

Every employee who abused animals at Sun Pet should be fired and prosecuted—something that Sun Pet vice president and general manager Barry Wisebram said in an interview that he would "make sure" happened. PETA sent a letter to Wisebram yesterday asking him to stick to his word. (He's apparently been too busy taking reporters on tours around his spruced-up warehouses, crafting misleading media statements, and making cameos in the video to do what's right for the hundreds of thousands of animals in his care—or even to get back to us.)

Oh, and one more thing: In Sun Pet's written response, the company asks for "suggestions or information that would help us."

We think that's a great idea. Please take a few minutes to contact Wisebram and politely suggest that it's time for the company to get out of the animal business altogether:

Barry Wisebram
Sun Pet Ltd.
3765 Zip Industrial Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30354

Written by Paula Moore

Many people just don't realize how horrible glue traps are for mice, rats, and unintended victims such as birds and kittens—or that Lowe's refuses to stop selling these cruel devices. Well, PETA's "mouse" enlightened shoppers outside a Lowe's in Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday—just in time for the company's annual meeting, which takes place today.

I bet the gal with phone in the photo above is tapping out an e-mail to Lowe's bigwigs. Or she could be reminding her Facebook friends to be nice to mice. Please cover all the bases by doing both. Small, sensitive animals thank you in advance.

Written by Karin Bennett