latimes / CC

When the Obamas first announced that they would be bringing a dog into their family at the end of the election, we all hoped that they would choose to adopt a rescue dog—and whaddaya know, our hopes were realized when Michelle Obama confirmed that the family would go the mutt-friendly route. And hey, what's a better example for the rest of the nation than to have a rescue as the "first dog"?

Hmm … what about having another rescue as the "second dog"? See, Senator Biden's wife promised him that they could welcome a "big dog" into their family if he were elected. She even taped pictures of dogs to the seats in his campaign plane to inspire him! This means that now that Senator Biden is officially the vice president-elect, he and Jill will start looking for the right dog to join their family. May we, again, suggest a rescue dog? There are some pretty big mutts out there, senator!

That's what PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk has written in a letter to the Bidens—that the vice president-elect would be doing a great thing for animals by bringing another rescue dog to Washington. A home for a needy dog and another example for all Americans to follow? Sounds great to us. Click here to read Ingrid’s full letter.

Written by Amanda Schinke

sonybmg / CC

So who besides me ran screaming to their local music store to pick up Pink's new album Funhouse, which dropped last week? OK, so maybe not screaming … but I know I'm not the only one who anxiously anticipated this album, because its first single, "So What," has been #1 on the music charts all over the globe. I'm thrilled to report that the album totally rocks, as does the rock star behind the tunes.

So what? Well, here at PETA, we love Pink because of her compassion for animals. She is a longtime PETA booster and a lifelong animal protector, and she kicks some serious derrière when it comes to shining the light on animal cruelty.

She's had a hand in so many of our campaigns—from that enormous billboard in protest of horse-drawn carriages that we erected in Times Square this year to the anti-fur ad that she shot for us a few years back. She called out Beyoncé for wearing fur, and she's written to both Prince William for his support of hunting and to Queen Elizabeth II for not ditching the bear fur for faux fur on her Guards' caps. But wait, there's more!

Pink narrated our Australian wool exposé, and called for a global boycott of Australian wool during a live concert in Paris! Then—not to leave our Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign hanging—Pink reached out to her fans about the cruelty that goes into every KFC bucket and box by placing a link to our Web site on the front page of her official fan site! Oh, and did I mention that she did that to coincide with the release of her 2006 album I'm Not Dead? Brilliant!

And believe-you-me, she works behind the scenes, too, often penning letters to animal-exploiting companies and individuals, including KFC and Siegfried and Roy, just to name a couple. The singer was even gracious enough to open her home and host the kick-off party for PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk's book Let's Have A Dog Party! last year! OK, did I mention she rocks?

Pink is seriously hardcore when it comes to helping out the animals, and we at PETA adore her for everything that she does. We wish you the best success on your new album, Pink! And you—get off your derrière and go buy it!

Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky

Nebraska has a unique new "safe haven" law. Most states have laws that allow panicked parents to leave their infants in safety—better to surrender a baby to a hospital or police station than to leave him or her in a dumpster (or worse)—but Nebraska's law doesn't place an age limit on surrendered children.

Since this law went into effect three months ago, a total of 18 children—many from out of state—have been abandoned at hospitals and police stations in Nebraska. The children, whose ages range from 20 months to 17 years, include a 13-year-old boy from Michigan whose mother drove more than 12 hours last week to leave him at a Nebraska hospital.

This is obviously an upsetting situation, and the law is already under fire across the nation. And although we at PETA are also upset by the lack of responsibility demonstrated by this level of abandonment, we're not surprised. After all, 25,000 unwanted animals are abandoned at animal shelters in Douglas and Sarpy counties in Nebraska each year.

And think about it: The dogs and cats who end up in animal shelters are the lucky ones. There are countless others who end up abandoned on the streets—neglected, starving, and sometimes abused, with no "safe haven" at all.

This is why PETA has created a billboard that stresses the importance of taking care of all who depend on us—animals and children alike.

Dogs and cats can live for 16 years or longer—almost the same amount of time, you might note, that responsible parents spend raising a child. Bringing an animal into your home is a lifetime commitment—and as PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch says, "Children and animals deserve better than to be dumped on a doorstep when they become inconvenient."

To learn how to provide better care for your animal companions or to find out how spaying and neutering keeps dogs and cats out of animal shelters, please visit HelpingAnimals.com.

Written by Amanda Schinke

Readers of Dog Fancy magazine opened the recent issue to see an ad that read, "Just bought a brand-new purebred puppy? Welcome him or her into your home with a free gift bag! Call us today at 1-866-834-6061 to claim your bag and hear about our products." The ad's offer sounds good enough, right?

Well, for people who actually called the number, the offer may have lost some of its appeal when they learned that the "gift" bags are actually body bags! If readers knew the ad was placed by PETA, they may have expected the shocking twist, but why would we want to give away a little detail like that?

The ad and the body bags were created to serve as a strong reminder to all dog lovers that for every dog you buy, another one will die, because every dog purchased from a breeder takes a spot in a home that a homeless dog is dying to fill. With the millions of homeless animals in this country, it's insane to buy rather than adopt.

Our video "Buy One, Get One Killed" drives home that point nicely.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

Here we go again.

Every so often, someone sets up a hoax website like Bonsai Kitten, which purported to be changing the shapes of cats by putting them in jars, Save Toby (that guy who claimed he was gonna kill his pet rabbit unless people sent him cash), and Kitty Beef (my personal favorite—the title kind of speaks for itself), and a lot of people get (understandably) very upset about the whole thing. Well, there’s a new kid on the block now, and this one may be the most interesting of them all, because it draws attention to a little-known aspect of the animal-experimentation business that really reveals a lot about the whole sick industry.

IBuyStrays.com is a hoax. Just to be clear on this, it’s not a real site. The person who set it up doesn’t really buy stray cats and dogs to sell to animal experimenters. So there’s no need for alarm on that front. But sadly, the situation it describes is very real. As many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. every year. Not that it makes any difference, ethically speaking, but a large number of these animals are cats and dogs, and a great many of those cats and dogs come from the streets, from animal shelters, and from people’s back yards.

Class B animal dealers, or “Bunchers,” are licensed by the USDA to obtain dogs and cats from “random sources,” which are defined as “animal pounds or shelters, auction sales, or from any person who did not breed and raise them on his or her premises.” And many states allow “pound seizure,” which means that the shelters are required by law to turn over certain animals to experimenters on demand.

So my point here is that anyone who’s shocked or upset by IBuyStrays.com should direct their attention towards the animal experimentation industry itself. Although it may be a bit tactless, the site isn’t doing any actual harm—in fact, if you ask me, it’s doing a good thing by making people aware of the fact that the horrific circumstances which it ironically depicts are a daily occurrence. And there is something we can do about it. To learn more about how you can help animals suffering in labs, check out StopAnimalTests.com, and if you haven’t already, you can click here to pledge to boycott products that are tested on animals.

Some Other Helpful Links

IBuyStrays.com Is a Hoax
What Is Pound Seizure?
More on Bunchers
List of Cruelty-Free Products
Testing … One, Two, Three
Moshe Solomonow’s Experiments on Cats from a Class B Dealer

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, 20 different Petsmart stores in 11 Seattle counties may have sold birds with avian chlamydiosis, which can pose a serious health risk to people who are exposed to the animals.

The threat of a nasty disease is a pretty great reason not to buy a bird from Petsmart, but it’s not the main reason. People shouldn’t buy birds from Petsmart because birds don’t belong in cages. All caged birds were either captured or captive-bred. In the wild, they spend their entire lives with their flockmates, and many species mate for life and share parenting tasks. Considering that some parrots fly 30 miles a day in the wild, it’s no surprise that these animals often develop severe behavioral problems when they’re stuck in a cage for life.

Click here to tell PetSmart to just stop it already.

Someone should probably tell this pig and cow that they’re not going to win any elections if their only platform is raising taxes, but the argument is a solid one: In addition to being a leading cause of global warming, meat causes cancer and heart disease—driving health-care costs through the roof. Alcohol, tobacco, and gasoline are subject to a “sin” tax, so meat should be too. We’re asking congress to tax meat at 10 cents per pound to offset its staggering costs, and these two have been following the presidential candidates all around the campaign trail to make that point. In a Mustang Convertible, which gives the whole thing a bit of flair. This pic’s from one of the Iowa stops:

A little while back, longtime PETA member and superstar intern Mark Wiesenfeld discovered that Target was selling foie gras online, along with a book about the barbaric product written by one of the owners of Hudson Valley Foie Gras—the folks responsible for many of the nightmarish scenes caught on tape in this investigation.

As soon as we contacted the company to let them know about the cruelty behind this product (produced by force feeding ducks until their livers become diseased and engorged) they immediately pulled both items from their site. As you may be aware, there are quite a few corporations that kick up a great big fuss when it comes to making ethical changes in their business (I’m looking at you, KFC), so Target’s prompt action in this case is commendable, and we’re extremely grateful for it.

People tend to hear a whole lot about some of the edgier stuff PETA does (the naked demonstrations, the provocative ads, the quirky videos), but—although it may not make the news—we spend a lot of our time working behind the scenes with big companies to encourage them to make changes that will help animals, so it’s great to have this opportunity to talk about that important aspect of our work. Target’s decision is part of a growing trend among institutions that are taking steps to distance themselves from hideously cruel products like foie gras, and with more and more companies adopting this progressive attitude, we’re getting very close to a time when it will be banned outright in this country.

For more information about the cruelty involved in making foie gras, and to take a pledge never to eat the stuff, please click here.

First of all, Happy New Year! Joel’s reign of terror over this blog has officially come to an end now that I’m back from vacation, so the PETA Files will be starting off the New Year with a return to the high-brow intellectual discussions, the lyrical prose style, and the rigorous grammatical standards that you may have missed in my absence.

I had actually been planning a whole long post devoted to making fun of Joel, but while I was skimming through his entries in search of material, I came across this little masterpiece, which made me change my mind. It may well be the most insightful, eloquent, and informative entry to appear on the PETA Files all year. So a big thank you to Joel for running the show last week—I should probably take vacations more often.

In other news, if you’re in New Year's resolution mode like I am, you should definitely check out PETA’s New Year's pledges to help animals. Whether it’s making an effort to buy cruelty-free products, taking more time to get active for animals, or cutting the eggs and dairy out of your diet, every little thing you do can make a big difference—and now is the perfect time to make the changes that you may have been putting off. For my part, I’m going to set aside more time to hang out with my friend Princess Cuteyface. And be nicer to Joel.

-Jack

Back before joining in the UFC, Mac did a Q&A with PETA. Now that he’s a household name, Mac’s back and we’re pleased to announce that he’s starring in two hard-hitting public service announcements for peta2’s veggie testimonial series (view some others in the series here, here, and here).

In the print version of the ad (click the thumbnail to see a full-size version) we see Mac with gloved fists raised and standing next to the tagline "I Am a Fighter in the Best Shape of My Life. I Am Mac Danzig, and I Am a Vegetarian." I hope all you guys who think you need to eat meat to be a “real man” are you catching this.

If you’re still not convinced that vegans can be tough as nails watch Mac’s video below.

So why is a vegan diet the diet of champions? Consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. Meat production is also a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and land degradation. And, of course, the best way to fight the cruelty of factory farms and slaughterhouses is to kick the meat habit.

Order a free Vegetarian Starter Kit today so you too can be an Ultimate Fighting champion. Or at least a healthy and compassionate individual.