Written by Jeff Mackey
After discovering that a family of stray dogs had taken refuge at a vacant property in Texas, a kind-hearted soul contacted the landlord to get permission to go in and remove the seriously ill and injured animals. But when local law-enforcement officials and rescue groups were unable to help—no animal shelter serves the county—the dogs' defender called PETA.
PETA's cruelty caseworker persuaded an animal shelter in a neighboring county to take in the dogs and found someone willing to drive more than an hour to transport the two dogs and five puppies to the animal shelter.
Within minutes of their arrival, however, four of the desperately ill puppies died. And one of the adult dogs—suffering from a severe head injury as a result of having been kicked by a horse—was euthanized. But the fifth puppy pulled through and is being fostered by a shelter staffer, and the other adult dog, who had been suffering from severe mange, has been treated and adopted into a loving home.
Life for homeless dogs and cats is dangerous and often deadly. Please, if you see stray animals, never look the other way—do whatever you can to get them off the streets and into a safe place.
Written by PETA
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Great news! After PETA got word that Colombian mobile phone company Comcel planned to raffle off 200 puppies as part of a promotion, we posted an action alert on our website, and you responded in droves. Thanks to you, Comcel and its parent company, América Móvil, have agreed to give debit cards as prizes instead.
Needless to say, randomly distributing puppies is a spectacularly bad idea. Animals who are given as prizes or gifts are often abused or discarded when the novelty wears off. The lucky ones wind up in shelters (as opposed to being abandoned on the streets), where they face euthanasia because of a lack of good homes.
Which reminds me—if you are ready to open your heart and home to an animal companion, always, always, always adopt—never buy. Need more persuasion? Who could possibly resist the importuning of Twilight hunk Kellan Lutz?
Uh oh! Is it happening again? Could politicians please stop promising that, if elected, they'll get their kids puppies? "Sorry, Suzie, you didn't shake enough hands or kiss enough babies so … no puppy for you!"
The latest politician to offer his kids this Faustian bargain is Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is reportedly out looking for a new puppy after being elected to another term on Tuesday. To be fair, he may have intended to follow through on his promise whether he was re-elected or not, but we still have to take issue with a reporter’s use of the term "shopping" to describe adding a new canine to the family.
Let's hope that Sen. Bennet is planning on adopting, not mall-hopping. Just to be sure, we've written to the senator and urged him to limit his puppy perusal to shelters and rescue groups. If he opts to fulfill his campaign promise by saving the life of a shelter dog, everybody wins.
Written by Alisa Mullins
In March, a video surfaced on online showing a smiling Marine throwing a live puppy off a cliff while another Marine laughs. People everywhere were outraged, PETA was immediately flooded with calls and e-mails from people who wanted to know how they could help get justice for the puppy.
PETA's Emergency Response Division immediately contacted the Commanding Officer at Marine Corps Base Hawaii urging strong action on this case. In addition, we launched an online action alert, which allowed tens of thousands of outraged people to share their feelings with Marine Corps officials and ask for court-martials and severe penalties for those involved.
Today, we received the long-awaited results of the Marine Corps' investigation. According to news sources, the soldier shown tossing the puppy has been expelled, and another Marine in the video apparently faces disciplinary action. A big, big thanks to everyone who took action and let the Marine Corps know that cruelty to animals is never acceptable—no matter who the abuser is.
PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch has these strong words on this matter:
The Marine Corps is right to expel David Mortari and discipline the other Marine who was involved in videotaping the pitching of a tiny puppy off a cliff in Iraq. We only wish that Mortari could face a proper trial; courts all over the U.S. sentence animal abusers to jail time nowadays—and such a punishment would certainly be in order here. Mortari embarrassed the U.S. and its military, and we hope to see his dismissal send a strong message that cruelty to animals simply will not be tolerated in our military ranks.
And here are my words:
Puppy torturers and people who perpetuate the torture of animals deserve to rot in prison.
- Joel Bartlett
Update: You can read PETA’s letter to the Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) about this video here, and if you want to show your support for investigating and punishing those involved, you can do so here.
A lot of people have been writing in and commenting about a shocking video that has recently surfaced which shows a smiling marine throwing a live puppy off a cliff while his friend laughs. Witnessing this kind of sadism under any circumstances is incredibly disturbing, but there’s something particularly horrifying about seeing it perpetrated by members of the military, and our caseworkers are currently analyzing the video footage to determine its legitimacy, as well as pushing military authorities to follow through on their own thorough investigation of this reprehensible act.
From what I understand, the culprit is believed to be based in Hawaii, and we intend to ensure that he—and anyone else involved in this atrocity—is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if this video is determined to be authentic. I’ll keep you posted.
I think I may have mentioned before how unhappy it makes me when brain-dead celebrities buy puppies from pet stores and drag them around until they get tired of them. Well, following an investigation which indicated that Britney’s favorite Hollywood hellhole, Pets of Bel Air, may have been getting its animals from puppy mills and operating without a license, the place was shut down yesterday! I have to say, I don’t have the highest of hopes that ol’ Brit is going to be able to figure out the ethical implications of this little piece of news all by herself, but it sure as hell sends a great message to anyone who’s considering buying an animal from a pet store instead of adopting. Check out the full story here.
Well, for now anyway. The Ellen DeGeneres puppy story has been all over the news lately and a lot of people have been asking us for our stance on the issue, but I have to say I was pretty surprised by the reaction after I posted PETA’s statement on the subject yesterday. Comments ranged from complaints that we were being too soft on her to admonitions that we were being too hard on her to some very impassioned attacks against both Ellen herself and the shelter involved.
But this just isn’t a black-and-white issue. There really are two legit sides to the story, and I honestly can’t understand why anyone would paint either Ellen or Mutts & Moms (the shelter that confiscated her dog) as a villain here. For one thing, the shelter has rules in place for a very good reason—to protect the animals. It seems like in this case they really could have taken the time to make a more thorough evaluation in the hopes of avoiding another traumatic move for the animal (there are certainly plenty of suitable homes for animals with kids in them), but you can’t fault a shelter for enforcing the rules it has in place to prevent animals from ending up in bad situations.
Now as far as Ellen is concerned, she screwed up by not reading what happened to be some really important fine print, but that doesn’t make her a bad person. On the contrary, with so many vapid celebrities running around with puppies under their arms that they picked up from some Hollywood pet store without so much as a passing thought for the millions of homeless animals in shelters, Ellen’s choice to adopt was commendable, and I hope that message doesn’t get lost in all the partisan ranting about this story that’s going on in the media.
Honestly, I’m a sucker for pretty much any crime drama. As long as there’s gunplay, a car chase or two, and maybe a bit of double-crossing, I’ll watch the damn thing. But from everything I’ve seen, Gone Baby Gone looks like it’s a cut above. The reviews have been stellar, and all indications are that this is going to be something special.
I mention all this because Gone Baby Gone (which comes out today) is set to establish my boy Casey Affleck as one of Hollywood’s elite leading men, and the value of having someone as well-spoken, thoughtful, and passionate about animal rights as he is in the public eye is pretty much inestimable. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video Casey made for us about why he’s vegan. There are no car chases or anything, but it’s extremely compelling stuff.
An awful lot of people have been contacting us to find out where PETA stands on the issue, so I figured I’d share our official statement on the subject, since there really is a bunch going on with this story. Here it is:
At a time when so many people in Hollywood—like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton—are making impetuous "pet" purchases, PETA commends Ellen DeGeneres for adopting a homeless animal from a shelter rather than buying a dog. Every purchase of an animal from a pet store sentences to death an animal who is desperately waiting in an animal shelter for a home. We know that Ellen was trying to do the right thing in finding the dog a new home. She just missed a step in neglecting to contact the agency first. PETA does think that the agency's policies of doing home checks and not allowing people to transfer animals to others are good rules that protect animals. Ellen was just trying to do the right thing—she is a huge animal lover—and she surely has learned from this experience.
So there you have it. It really sucks that Ellen had a bad experience after doing the compassionate thing and adopting from a shelter, but you can’t really fault a shelter for going the extra mile to make sure everyone who ends up with one of their animals is likely to be a responsible guardian. I guess we just see both sides of the story on this one.
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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