It took months and several news stories about her plight, but Gracie, the spunky three-legged, earless dog who was rescued by an American soldier in Afghanistan and fostered by PETA staffers, has finally found a home.

After Gracie was featured in The Virginian-Pilot, her story touched the heart of Virginia Beach teacher Beth Hall, whose 13-year-old dog had died a couple of months earlier. Beth sent us an eloquent e-mail listing the many pros her home had to offer ("lots of love and attention," a "3/4-acre fenced backyard," and a "cat companion"). Under "cons," she wrote, "N/A."

Gracie moved into the Hall home on Friday and has already wriggled her way into the hearts of Beth; Beth's 17-year-old son, Andrew; Beth's brother, who acts as Gracie's stay-at-home "uncle"; Beth's mom, who pops in for daily visits; and, of course, Marmalade, Beth's cat, who was adopted from a local animal shelter.

Gracie is safe, but tens of thousands of homeless dogs in animal shelters and at rescue groups are still waiting to be adopted. They don't have the great P.R. that Gracie had—they are simply relying on people to do the right thing by adopting from animal shelters instead of buying from breeders or pet stores. If you have the time and resources, consider adopting an animal!

In what could prove to be a groundbreaking case for the legal rights of animals, New Yorker Elena Zakharova is suing a pet store because of the chronic pain that her dog, Umka, suffers from as a result of hip and knee problems, which she attributes to the dog's puppy mill origins.

While New York has a puppy "lemon law" that allows buyers to return dogs with medical problems, Zakharova refuses to send Umka back to the store as if she were a defective stereo. If the court rules in Zakharova's favor, it could set a precedent under which pet stores would have to pony up, as well they should, to guardians of puppy mill dogs who incur bills associated with medical problems caused by negligence or a deliberate lack of appropriate early care. This could, in turn, squelch puppy mills, which confine dogs to small, filthy wire cages as mere "breeding machines" and allow them to suffer from untreated illnesses and injuries.

We will watch and hope for the best in this important case for "pet shop pups."

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.

According to a whistleblower, two bearded dragons languished in the back room of a Chicago-area PetSmart store for six months, apparently suffering from improperly treated eye infections that spread to their jaws and caused their faces to rot away.  

After pressure from PETA, the store's manager finally took the bearded dragons to a veterinarian who put them out of their misery, but untold numbers of other animals are likely languishing in PetSmart stores and its suppliers' warehouses across the country. PETA's undercover investigations have shown time after time that this kind of cruelty is business as usual for PetSmart and its suppliers.

PETA revealed horrors at Rainbow World Exotics, one of PetSmart's main animal suppliers, including throwing live animals into the trash, crude neuter surgeries performed in a dark and filthy room by a layperson, depriving animals of desperately needed veterinary care, and leaving them to cannibalize each other, suffer, and die alone in their cages.

At Sun Pet, another PetSmart supplier, an employee—who has since been fired—placed hamsters in a bag and bashed it against a table in an attempt to kill them. Other animals who couldn't be sold were gassed in a crude, filth-encrusted tank.   

Animals at the now-defunct U.S. Global Exotics, Inc., which supplied exotic animals to PetSmart, were crammed into severely crowded and filthy containers, including soda bottles and milk jugs, litter pans, cattle-feeding troughs, and barren wire cages. Hundreds of animals were denied basic necessities, such as food, water, and veterinary care.

And PETA's undercover investigation of a PetSmart store in Manchester, Connecticut, documented that more than 100 animals—including hamsters, rats, lizards, chinchillas, and birds—were deprived of adequate veterinary care and just left to die slowly, hidden from customers' sight. PetSmart boasted that this store had an "outstanding pet care team" and an "exceptional pet care record." Pathetic.

Please show PetSmart that you haven't forgotten about the animals who suffer unseen. Boycott PetSmart, and tell company officials that you won't set foot in their stores until live animals are no longer part of the inventory.

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez may have made beliebers out of nearly 200 homeless dogs and cats. When the stars visited the animals at a Winnipeg animal shelter, Gomez found somebody to love (besides the Biebs), a husky mix she named Baylor. Of course, since Justin advocates for adoption and Selena has five other rescued dogs, the couple chose a baby, baby, baby from a shelter instead of a pet store.

Will Justin be adopting a new friend for himself and his dog, Sam? Never say never (except to buying from a breeder).

Written by Michelle Sherrow

If you enjoy watching cheetahs sprint or ospreys dive, you might not be a big fan of sloths—one of the slowest and sleepiest animals on the planet. But a closer look at these Central and South American rainforest relatives of anteaters and armadillos reveals a fascinating animal unlike any other.

© Mark M. Gaskill

Sloths—who can be two-toed and three-toed—spend the vast majority of their time in trees, often hanging upside down from branches, thanks to their powerful front legs. Sloths sleep up to 20 hours a day and move very little when they are awake. If spotted on the ground by a predator, sloths have virtually no chance of escape but will face their pursuer with their sharp claws and fierce bites. But place that same sloth in the water, and you're practically looking at an Olympic swimmer. In fact, sloths take to the water so well that they'll intentionally plummet from a treetop directly into the river below. Sloths even mate and give birth while hanging from branches, and sloth babies cling to their mother for up to nine months.

One of the sloths rescued from USGE

While sloths are right at home in trees and in the water, one place they don't belong is in captivity. Several sloths seized from the now-defunct exotic-animal dealer U.S. Global Exotics (USGE)—based on evidence from a PETA undercover investigation of the hellish warehouse—were thankfully taken in by a progressive, compassionate facility in Detroit. Help keep sloths—and other animals—safe by never spending a dime at any store that sells animals.

Written by Joe Taksel

Tuesday night, in a vote that met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation, the Irvine, California, City Council made the groundbreaking move to simultaneously ban rodeos, circuses that use exotic animals, and retail sales of cats and dogs, making it the first city in the country to ban all three in one fell swoop.  

PETA had notified supporters about the pending Irvine vote and urged them to attend the meeting or contact City Council members, and their input was obviously heard loud and clear. Thanks to Irvine's new laws, elephants will be safe from bullhook beatings, horses and bulls will no longer break their backs after being goaded into bucking, and puppy mills will no longer be paid to churn out litters of sickly, unsocialized puppies. 

To help pass similar laws in your community, contact your city council members, or e-mail Info@peta.org. For updates on any proposed animal-related laws in your area, join PETA's Action Team.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

Lawmakers in California are taking a big step to protect animals from greedy breeders. Landmark two-part legislation bans the sale of animals in any public venue, which includes attempts by breeders to meet buyers they have contacted over the Internet in a neutral location.

The law will, we hope, hinder puppy-mill operators, who often don't want potential buyers to see the cramped, crude, and filthy conditions in which the animals are kept. Undercover investigations of puppy mills have documented dogs with no protection from the heat or cold and no veterinary care while suffering from medical conditions such as crusty, oozing eyes; raging ear infections; mange; and abscessed feet from being forced to stand on wire cage floors. Investigators have also observed dogs who had gone "kennel crazy," frantically turning in circles in their tiny cages.

The new law also increases the penalties for animal neglect so that they are on par with the penalties for cruelty. And some cities in California are going a step further, such as Glendale, where the City Council banned pet store sales of dogs and cats. Of course, we can all protect animals from abuse in the pet trade by always adopting instead of buying.  

Written by Michelle Sherrow

No dog guardian wants his or her best canine friend to come down with a debilitating, terminal illness. But when they buy a purebred dog, that’s what many dog guardians can expect.

Researchers at the University of Georgia looked at the causes of death for tens of thousands of dogs over two decades and discovered that certain diseases are more likely to afflict certain breeds. For example, they found that Bernese mountain dogs, bouviers des Flandres, boxers, golden retrievers, and Scottish terriers have extremely high mortality rates caused by cancer, while Chihuahuas, Doberman pinschers, fox terriers, Maltese, and Newfoundlands are plagued with deadly cardiovascular disease. This is in addition to the defects that were already known to afflict specific breeds, such as hip dysplasia in German shepherds, spinal disc disease in dachshunds, and epilepsy in beagles.

So, when people pay breeders and pet stores to churn out purebred puppies, who are often the product of inbreeding, they could be sentencing additional dogs to a lifetime of chronic illness and an early death. 

justinplambert/cc by 2.0

 
That's not to say that mutts don't get sick, but their more diverse genetic makeup lowers the chances that they will suffer from the inherited ailments that often befall purebred dogs. When you adopt a homeless mutt, you not only save a life but also help lessen the demand for more purebred puppies, who may suffer from chronic, painful, and ultimately lethal illnesses.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

According to hilarious spoof news source The Onion, the first signs of spring are flowers blooming, longer days returning, and animal shelters euthanizing the last of the "Christmas puppies."   

 
In a recent article, The Onion "interviews" puppy mill patrons who grew tired of caring for their dogs once they outgrew their puppy cuteness: "'Two years ago we bought Lisa a puppy for Christmas,' says Jason Hutton of San Diego, who quietly abandoned his daughter's Lhasa apso by the side of a road when he grew weary of family arguments over whose turn it was to feed it. 'And there came a point where it just wasn't a puppy anymore, you know?'" 

For kids who discover a puppy under the tree alongside Xbox games and Barbie dolls, the novelty often wears off faster than you can say "jingle bells," and the dog is discarded like last year's ZhuZhu pet. The Onion's tongue is firmly planted in its cheek, of course, but it's as correct about this scenario as pet stores are about estimating their holiday profits while they play an endless loop of Burl Ives classics.

Written by Michelle Sherrow