PETA Global 2018 Issue 4

RESCUED! A Black Beauty With a Secret in Her Stomach

W as that a scrap of carpet or a dog? PETA’s fieldworkers were driving down a bumpy country road to deliver free doghouses to cold, neglected dogs, and they weren’t sure what they’d spotted in a muddy backyard, so they drove back to check. They found an emaciated little dog, surrounded by a sea of mud and chained to a doghouse – with no floor and a caved-in roof that offered no protection from the sleet, rain, and snow. The animal, named Gus, became one of dozens of “backyard dogs” – left outside 24 hours a day, all year and in all weather – assisted every week by PETA fieldworkers, who deliver free doghouses and other basic necessities. Last winter, more than 260 dogs in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina – the area surrounding the Sam Simon Center, PETA’s headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia – received custom built doghouses. Over 1,500 received free straw bedding, which is both delivered directly to dogs and given away free all winter long in PETA’s parking lot. Fieldworkers also refill empty or frozen water bowls; treat fleas, flystrike, and internal parasites; provide food, a toy, and treats to each desperate dog; and transport animals for low- to no-cost spay/neuter surgeries and emergency veterinary care. For these lonely beings, the most important part of the visit is often the scratches PETA: Sheltering Dogs From the Storm

She was beautiful, black, and as big as a bus.

When staffers with Animal Rahat – a PETA-supported animal-relief organization in India – first spotted Meena, they suspected that she was pregnant because of her huge, distended abdomen. But then they realized that there wasn’t a calf inside her: The bloat was caused by plastic garbage! When they operated on her, out came 103 pounds (47 kg) of it. Before being rescued from a negligent owner, Meena had ingested plastic bags and other debris while scavenging for food on trash heaps, as cows in India are commonly compelled to do if they don’t want to starve. She had another problem, too: Her horns had not been trimmed, and as a result, they’d curled around and grown all the way back into her face. One was actually puncturing her jawbone. Animal Rahat veterinarians trimmed Meena’s horns to give her immediate relief and took her to the Sam Simon retirement center for working animals to remove the plastic from her digestive tract. She recovered quickly and now looks and feels just fine. She loves spending time with her new friends at the sanctuary, where she is well fed, plump, and safe. Hungry animals often mistakenly ingest plastic waste, and many are surely walking (or swimming or flying) around with indigestible trash clogging up their insides. We can all help prevent this suffering by recycling, using cloth shopping bags, and picking up trash, especially straws, six-pack rings, and other plastic debris. PETA and its international affiliates do their part by recycling plastic and avoiding the use of nonbiodegradable plastics in their offices. How about you and your workplace? Cruelty Knows No Borders Animal Rahat (which means “relief” in Hindi) turns 15 this year, and with PETA’s help, the charity has saved thousands of animals. For instance, a donkey foal named Lavender and her mother were two of 76 donkeys spared backbreaking labor at a brick kiln, thanks to Animal Rahat’s innovative project that replaces “beasts of burden” with tractors. In India, animals are still forced to haul passengers, crops, building supplies, and other heavy loads. Many suffer from lameness and painful sores, are disturbingly thin from malnutrition, and become dehydrated because they aren’t given any water while being forced to work. Animal Rahat helps alleviate such suffering with food, water, medicine, and medical care. Staffers teach owners to care for their animals, as well as giving many impoverished people a subsidy for allowing sick, injured, and elderly ones to retire, rather than working them until they drop or sending them to slaughter. Some surrendered animals live out their days at Animal Rahat’s peaceful sanctuary.

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Photo frames: © iStock.com/blackred • PETA worker moving the doghouse: © michellecehn.com

From mud puddles

to couch cuddles

they get behind their ears and the reassurance they feel from being treated like the very best dog in the whole world. Many of the remote, impoverished areas that PETA fieldworkers visit have no animal shelters. Some don’t even have a veterinarian, which means that PETA’s fleet of mobile, low-cost clinics offers the only services available to many people, especially those in areas with no public transportation. Fieldworkers often encounter horrific cases of neglect, such as those involving dogs barely able to breathe because of advanced heartworm disease or suffering frommange, parvovirus, infected wounds, tumors, embedded collars, and even starvation. Gus was so thin, he looked like a fur coat covering a skeleton. His owner reported not being able to afford to feed him or pay the surrender fee charged by the local shelter. He’d been thinking of simply turning the dog loose in the woods and leapt at the PETA fieldworkers’ offer to help. Gus now lives with a family in a cozy house (with a roof that doesn’t leak!) and sleeps in a bed – under the covers. He still doesn’t like mud puddles. When it rains, he prefers to stay indoors on the couch.

Wooing wary Meena

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103 pounds of plastic in her stomach!

Take Action Now Help make winter a little more bearable for a neglected dog by making a donation to PETA’s

doghouse project. (Contributions are tax-deductible in the US.) For a limited time, PETA Business Friends member v-dog will match your gift with a donation of 5 pounds (2.27 kg) of vegan dog food for pups in need, so act fast! Learn more at PETA.org/Doghouse .

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Take Action Now Learn more about Animal Rahat’s lifesaving work and sponsor a rescued animal at AnimalRahat.com .

Happy Meena – safe at last!

Global

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TUMMY TROUBLE

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