Written by PETA
After buying a dog over the Internet sight unseen for a staggering $7,500, a Long Island man added insult to injury by sending the dog on a terrifying 3,000-mile journey back to the breeder in Washington state less than a week later. The dog, who was likely confused and disoriented after the initial cross-country flight, had failed to adjust immediately to her strange new environment, so the man essentially returned her like a sweater he'd ordered from L.L.Bean, despite the fact that the breeder refused to take the dog back and reportedly said that he would not pick her up at the airport. (The breeder did eventually claim the dog but only after she'd been forced to spend the night at an airport boarding facility.)
The dog buyer could have saved himself a lot of trouble—and the dog a lot of trauma—if he had just taken his family to the local animal shelter, where they could have chosen from among a plethora of great dogs. But considering that he was dumb enough to hand over an exorbitant amount of money to a breeding operation that exacerbates the animal homelessness crisis, allowed the dog only six days to settle into her new home, and was inconsiderate enough to ship her off to an unknown fate in an airplane's dangerous cargo hold after tiring of her, any responsible shelter worker would now lock the doors to this man.
But for those of us who don't view animals as disposable accessories, animal shelters are the perfect place to make a permanent love connection.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
A West Virginia man faces 29 charges of cruelty to animals after allegedly using various tools to torture and kill at least 29 dogs and puppies over the course of several months. According to reports, Jeffrey Nally Jr. told police that he got the dogs from ads in the local newspaper and that the animals were all free or just a few dollars. Apparently illustrating the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to people, Nally is also charged with allegedly keeping his former girlfriend captive in the home for months, forcing her to watch him torture the animals, and then making her clean up the mess. West Virginia State Police rescued the woman, along with three live puppies whom they believe were slated to be killed.
As horrific as it sounds, cases like this are not uncommon. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Barry Herbeck, who tortured, sodomized, and killed nearly two dozen animals whom he obtained through "free to a good home" ads. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Classified ads are magnets for abusers who would not be approved for adoption from animal shelters. (Nally was reportedly a convicted criminal under home confinement when he allegedly obtained the dogs.) Animal dealers also target such ads as sources of animals they later sell to laboratories for experiments.
If your local newspaper runs "free to a good home" ads, please contact the paper's editors, warn them about the dangers of these ads, and ask them to stop running them. And if you see such ads, call the number listed and urge the animals' guardians to take the animals to an animal shelter instead.
UPDATE: As a result of PETA's complaint to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (DOA), the office of Susan West, director of the DOA's Dog Law Enforcement Bureau, has advised Heavenly Angels and Dreamland Divas Director Grace James that the planned puppy giveaway is a violation of Pennsylvania law and has assured PETA that puppies will not be given away as prizes.
Just when you thought kiddie beauty pageants couldn't get any creepier, PETA has learned that children's beauty-pageant company Heavenly Angels and Dreamland Divas is planning to give away free puppies as prizes to the winners of a competition in Pennsylvania next weekend. Hello? How out of touch are these people?
Giving away live animals as prizes is against Pennsylvania law, and for good reason. Puppies need constant attention, expensive veterinary care, patient and gentle guidance, and someone who will commit to caring for them for life. Not every family is willing or able to do this (let alone those who are busy traveling to pageants), and puppies who end up with people who never really wanted them are often turned over to shelters, passed along to anyone who will take them, chained up in a backyard, or even abandoned on the street.
Let's remind the pageant's director to comply with Pennsylvania law—which the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture itself has advised pageant officials on—and cancel plans to give away animals as prizes.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
Shortly after PETA's German affiliate received information from a Bosnian whistleblower who claimed to have identified the girl caught on video hurling puppies into a river, Bosnian police reportedly also identified the girl, whose actions had prompted an international outcry. In the video (which was allegedly shot by the girl's brother), she can be seen cheerfully chucking the whimpering puppies to an almost certain death.
Earlier this week, PETA offered a $2,000 reward—and film director Michael Bay offered a $50,000 reward—for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for this heinous act.
If convicted, the puppy abuser would face a fine of $6,400 under a newly adopted Bosnian animal-protection law.
Written by Alisa Mullins
Director and producer Michael Bay is famous for blowing things up in Transformers and Armageddon as well as for remaking horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but when it comes to violence against animals, Michael yells, "Cut!"
Michael pledged $50,000 on his website for the arrest and "successful prosecution" of the person who threw puppies into a river and the person who recorded the footage, which was posted online. Let's hope that Michael's reward—along with PETA's—brings everyone who was involved in this horrifying act to justice. People who are cruel to animals often commit acts of violence against their fellow humans as well, so it's crucial that we report known or suspected cruelty to animals to police and animal control officials immediately.
PETA is offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for drowning a litter of helpless puppies in the video above. Members of 4chan were able to track down the owner of the Bosnian YouTube account that originally uploaded the video and we currently have six possible leads, but the identity of the girl has yet to be confirmed. If you have information regarding this case, please contact PETA's Cruelty Investigations Department.
Written by Shawna Flavell
As a result of PETA's letters, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology has issued retractions for two of the studies conducted by Gerardo L. Paez, the experimenter we told you about last week who cut out puppies' eyes and then lied about the results. Even better, the Foundation Fighting Blindness—which funded the experiments—has prohibited Paez from receiving future funding or working on any project funded by the organization. No more puppy mutilations for you, Paez!
Gerardo L. Paez, a former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) School of Veterinary Medicine, spent years using taxpayer money to breed puppies to have a gene that causes progressive retinal atrophy, a degenerative eye disease that culminates in blindness. During one study, 3-week-old beagle puppies were killed after they had their eyes cut out and dissected. As if that weren't awful enough, according to an investigation by the federal government's Office of Research Integrity, when the results weren't what Paez had hoped for, he simply fabricated them.
Here's a little-known fact about government grants: They're refundable. At least they are if you break the rules. That's why PETA is urging the National Eye Institute (NEI) to demand that UPenn return the money that was used for the experiments in which serial puppy-torturer Paez intentionally fabricated data. Paez later presented the bogus findings at two annual meetings of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Obviously, that's a big no-no—and it's grounds for the NEI to demand a refund for a portion of the $2 million it laid out for the dog experiments and to prohibit Paez from ever receiving taxpayer money again.
This wouldn't be the first time that grant money had to be returned: Prompted by investigations and complaints from PETA, the University of Connecticut Health Center and the University of Washington were ordered to pay back tens of thousands in grant money for abusing monkeys in their laboratories. The feds have also ordered the University of Michigan to pay back a whopping $1.4 million that was used for animal experiments that violated the law.
It just goes to show that crime doesn't always pay—sometimes it pays back.
On Monday, we blogged about the risks posed to animals who are stowed away like luggage in the cargo holds of planes. On Tuesday, those warnings became a heartbreaking reality for seven puppies who died after being shipped from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Chicago in the hold of a commercial airline.
Shipping animals as if they were duffel bags or cosmetics cases is wrong for many reasons, one being that the cargo holds of airplanes are often not temperature-controlled. During the summer months, the temperature in this area of a plane can be deadly. Investigators are considering heatstroke as one possible cause of death for the puppies. It's believed that temperatures in Tulsa were already 86 degrees before 7 a.m., and the puppies were loaded into the cargo hold and left there as the flight was delayed on the tarmac for more than an hour. If this is the case, the puppies may have been baked alive in temperatures well above 100 degrees. A dog can succumb to heatstroke in just 15 minutes, and it's not a pleasant way to go.
We have set up a memorial page for the animals over on our True Friends Memorials site. Please take a minute to leave some kind words and consider donating to help other animals in need. And the next time you travel with your animal companions, only fly if they can fly in the cabin with you—or make it a road trip, and let Fido ride shotgun.
This is Precious.
PETA staffers and volunteers were out delivering doghouses and straw bedding to neglected dogs one bitterly cold February morning when they found her and the 11 puppies she had given birth to the night before. Three of the puppies were already dead, having frozen to death overnight. Precious was holding one of the dead puppies her mouth in a futile attempt to warm the cold little body. As excited as she was to see her rescuers, she refused to part with her dead baby.
We rushed Precious and her puppies to the vet, but the surviving puppies were so hypothermic that their body temperatures did not even register on a thermometer. Precious herself, besides being severely malnourished, was feverish, anemic, and crawling with fleas and ticks. She also tested positive for hookworms and heartworms.
While Precious had shivered in the cold, watching her babies die one by one, her owners had been snug in their warm house, oblivious to her existence out there on her chain. They didn't even know that she had given birth until PETA staffers told them.
Precious and her puppies epitomize what happens when people do not spay or neuter their dogs and cats. So much suffering could have been prevented if her owners had availed themselves of PETA's "Spay and Neuter, Immediately, Please" (SNIP) mobile clinic, which spays and neuters pit bulls for free and even provides free transportation if necessary.
We wish we could say that Precious' case was an isolated event—that it isn't something we deal with often—but we hear every single day from dog and cat owners who don't think that it will matter if their dog or cat has "just one litter." In Precious' case, her owners had no idea that newborn puppies cannot survive freezing temperatures. They didn't know that pregnant and nursing animals require extra food to nourish their growing puppies or that they need medical care just like people do. They didn't realize that dogs need to be treated for fleas to prevent anemia, and that dogs living in mosquito-infested, swampy areas need heartworm prevention nearly year-round or they will almost certainly contract this deadly disease.
They didn't know any of this until it was too late for Precious and her puppies.
By taking a moment to ask your governor to sponsor mandatory sterilization legislation in 2010, you can be the voice that saves a dog like Precious.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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