PETA Alert: ‘Missing Person’ Flyers Go Up Near Local Pet Stores

Group Shines a Spotlight on the Many Wonderful Homeless Dogs Awaiting Adoptive Families

For Immediate Release:
March 23, 2021

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

In a twist on the typical “missing dog” flyer, PETA plastered areas around local pet shops with flyers showing a photograph of Flutter, who was rescued by the group and transferred to the Norfolk SPCA for adoption. PETA is pointing out that Flutter is just one of millions of animals of all ages and breeds waiting for their “missing person” and a chance at a loving home—and people can “be that person” by finding their next family member at an animal shelter and never buying from breeders or pet stores, which exacerbate the overpopulation crisis by bringing animals into a world already bursting at the seams with homeless ones.

“Millions of dogs and cats are missing a person to care for them, but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to crack this case,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA encourages everyone to follow the clues to their local animal shelter, where wonderful dogs of all ages are just waiting for the right family to come along.”

PETA notes that breeders and puppy mills—massive outdoor warehouses that confine dogs in inhumane conditions for years, sell puppies to pet stores, and discard them once they’re no longer profitable—produce litter after litter of puppies while an estimated 70 million dogs and cats are homeless in the U.S. at any given time. An estimated 10% of those end up in shelters, where many must eventually be euthanized for various reasons, including injury, illness, old age, emotional or psychological damage, and a lack of good homes. That’s why PETA advocates for adoption and urges guardians to get their animal companions spayed or neutered.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.