Protesters to Gather Over School’s Iditarod Partnership

PETA Urges Saint Andrew School to Teach Students Compassion for Neglected, Abused Dogs

For Immediate Release:
February 21, 2017

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

What:    Brandishing posters emblazoned with photos of miserable chained-up dogs used in the Iditarod, PETA members will gather outside Chicago’s Saint Andrew School to protest the Catholic school’s participation in the 2017 Iditarod “Teacher on the Trail” program, in which a Saint Andrew teacher will take part in the dogsled race and incorporate it into her lesson plans. The protest will be led by Fern Levitt, director of the upcoming documentary Sled Dogs.

When:    Wednesday, February 22, 12 noon

Where:    Saint Andrew School, 1710 W. Addison St., Chicago

TeachKind, PETA’s humane-education division, has called on Saint Andrew to end the partnership. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that dogs used in the Iditarod are forced to run up to 100 miles a day across treacherous ice and in subzero temperatures. Their feet can become cut, bruised, and raw from the frozen terrain. At least 26 dogs used in the Iditarod have died just since 2004, and countless more have been injured. When not forced to run, most dogs are chained up with nothing but overturned barrels or dilapidated doghouses to protect them from the hot sun or the frigid cold.

“Saint Andrew School’s mission is surely to teach kids Catholic values, which include compassion for animals,” says PETA Vice President and lifelong Catholic Colleen O’Brien. “Dogs aren’t snowmobiles with paws, and PETA is calling on the school to end its partnership with the cruel and deadly Iditarod.”

 For more information, please visit PETA.org.