Animals Need You to Watch ‘Breaking the Chain’—Now FREE on YouTube

Published September 1, 2020 by Katherine Sullivan. Last Updated December 29, 2025.

2 min read

If you watch one thing this week, for animals’ sake, make it Breaking the Chain, now free to watch on YouTube.

This exceptional documentary will introduce you to the dogs, cats, and other animals caught up in a national crisis with PETA fieldworkers on the frontlines. Through interviews and behind-the-scenes footage following PETA’s dedicated fieldworkers, you’ll meet the heroes who respond to calls for help around the clock and in all weather extremes. Watch now:

You’ll meet Zena, an emaciated German shepherd who spent years chained in a backyard, tormented by flies, fleas, and mosquitoes—and Edith, a gentle chow mix who was chained outdoors for nearly a decade. To see all the heartwarming moments and hard-fought victories that prove how lives can change when people persist, you’ll have to watch Breaking the Chain.

“It’s one thing to hear about the animal neglect and overpopulation crisis and another to see for yourself how dogs are left to shiver, pant, limp, and suffer in backyards, where they’re confined to wire cages or tied to pieces of junk. This is what PETA sees every day, and I want everyone else to see it, too,” said Breaking the Chain executive producer Anjelica Huston.

Join PETA’s first responders as they prevail against all odds. Discover how each one of us can change the world for animals in our own communities so that one day, no one will be condemned to a life sentence of isolation and deprivation, without love, respect, or even basic care.

Zena in — For dogs like Zena, a life without companionship or even basic necessities like water in the heat of summer and shelter from winter storms—is a fate worse than death. Many of these animals’ only hope is the dedicated PETA field team, which combats the national epidemic of neglect and the companion animal overpopulation crisis.

This eye-opening documentary has appeared at several film festivals, including the Richmond International Film Festival and the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival.

Press Play on Breaking the Chain

You’ll never forget these animals or the people who go out looking for them to answer their desperate calls for help.

If you’re ultra-inspired by the documentary’s two-legged stars, please consider applying to become a PETA fieldworker. We’re looking for diligent, hardworking, kind, professional, physically able individuals who care about animals—and who don’t mind getting a little dirt on their cargo pants.