Greyhound Begs for Help on New PETA Billboard

Patterson Veterinary Supply’s Failure to Act on a Pledge to Rescue Dogs Abused by Blood Farm Incurs Animal Lovers’ Ire

For Immediate Release:
September 27, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Billion-dollar company Patterson Veterinary Supply, Inc.—based in St. Paul—has failed to live up to its pledge to help retire the 150 or so greyhounds found suffering in miserable and squalid conditions in PETA’s exposé of Texas kennel The Pet Blood Bank, Inc., whose blood products Patterson distributed. Patterson promised to aid the dogs’ rescue and rehabilitation but is now lying low, so a billboard will be going up near its headquarters showing a greyhound, still languishing at the blood farm, cowering in the dirt next to the words “Patterson Veterinary Supply: You Profited From My Use. Now Retire Me!”

“It shouldn’t have taken a PETA exposé to show Patterson Veterinary Supply the misery of the dogs trapped in mouse-infested, filthy, dirt-floored kennels at its business partner’s blood bank,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “Patterson made money off these dogs for years and now owes them rescue and retirement into safe homes, where they’ll never be used as living blood bags again.”

Patterson declined an invitation to meet with PETA three days before the group’s exposé was published online and in The Washington Post. Patterson’s only public response came after more than 40,000 people e-mailed Patterson Companies CEO James Wiltz to urge the Fortune 500 company to use its resources to secure lifetime care for the dogs. Since then, thousands more people have echoed the call, including on the company’s Facebook post about PETA’s exposé.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—exposed that dogs at The Pet Blood Bank were denied veterinary care for severe oral infections, painful and infected wounds, an apparent broken leg, and other health issues. Most canines at the facility are solitarily confined to barren kennels, in which they pace and spin in circles—severe stress-induced behavior—cower, and even urinate on themselves in fear when approached.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.