Chiefs Safety Tyrann Mathieu Shuts Himself Inside Freezer to Get A Feel for Neglected Dogs’ Misery

Dogs Stuck Out in the Cold? ‘Honey Badger’ Does Care! Mathieu Says to Bring Dogs Indoors in New PETA Video

For Immediate Release:
December 10, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

“This is colder than winter practice,” exclaims Kansas City Chiefs safety Tyrann “Honey Badger” Mathieu as he shivers inside a walk-in freezer to make a point for PETA: If you can’t handle freezing temperatures, neither can your dogs—bring them indoors!

In a new video, available here, Mathieu manages to endure the frigid air for just 20 minutes before letting himself out. “I can get out of this freezer,” he says, but dogs who are chained outdoors are “not able to get warm.” That’s why he’s calling on everyone to keep dogs indoors where they’re safe and happy and to report any suspected animal abuse or neglect to law enforcement.

Kansas City is just one of the many parts of the country that have already been hit with below-freezing temperatures this season. Dogs who are chained or penned outdoors can only shiver in misery during cold snaps. Every year, PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—receives thousands of complaints about dogs and cats struggling to survive outside in the cold, where they can suffer from frostbite and exposure and become dehydrated when water sources freeze. Last winter, there were at least 29 cold weather–related companion animal deaths—and these are just the ones that were reported. Most aren’t.

Mathieu’s campaign is a follow-up to the last video he made with PETA, in which he locked himself inside a hot car to highlight how quickly dogs can succumb to heatstroke during the summer months. That video went viral and now has over 70 million combined views.

Antoine Bethea, Devin Funchess, Chris Harris Jr., Ronnie Stanley, Terrell Suggs, Lonnie Walker, Alex Morgan, Elena Delle Donne, and many other athletes have also teamed up with PETA to promote kindness to dogs.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.