Chicago Auto Show to Face Protest Over Iditarod Sponsorship

PETA Supporters Will Be Chained to Barrels to Demand That Chrysler Franchise Cut Ties With Deadly Dog Race

For Immediate Release:
February 7, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

On Saturday, PETA protesters will be chained to barrels—mimicking the conditions endured by hundreds of dogs raised for the Iditarod—and brandish signs proclaiming, “Chrysler: Stop Driving Dogs to Their Death,” outside the Chicago Auto Show, where the auto company will be promoting its vehicles. The reason? A Chrysler franchise in Anchorage, Alaska, continues to sponsor the Iditarod, a deadly race in which dogs are forced to run approximately 1,000 miles in subzero temperatures, leaving many exhausted, injured, ill, or even dead. The protest comes before the Iditarod takes place in March and calls attention to PETA’s first-ever video exposé of champion mushers’ kennels, which revealed that dogs’ only protection—even when the wind chill dropped to 19 degrees below zero—were dilapidated, open-faced boxes or plastic barrels to which they were chained in the ice and snow.

When:    Saturday, February 8, 12 noon

Where:    Outside 2301 S. King Dr. (at the intersection of S. King Drive & E. McCormick Square), Chicago

“Dogs used for this horrific race are chained outdoors in freezing weather, denied veterinary care, and even raced until they inhale their own vomit and eventually die,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Chrysler’s support of the Iditarod is a badge of shame, and PETA wants the car company to end it.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that more than 150 dogs have died since the Iditarod began, and that number doesn’t even include the scores of dogs who died while chained up outside or who were killed for not being fast enough.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.