The 'PETA Kills Animals'
Scam
PETA is proud to be a shelter at which animals in need of a merciful death don't have the door slammed in their faces, a place where people in our community and in poverty-stricken areas surrounding our southern Virginia headquarters, the Sam Simon Center, can come to receive that respectful, considerate final service to their animal companions.
We offer a painless end through euthanasia for suffering animals, including those whose guardians can't afford to pay a veterinarian to perform the service.
Who Is Spreading the Misinformation About PETA?
PETAKillsAnimals.com is run by the disingenuously named Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a front group that's funded by KFC, Outback Steakhouse, Philip Morris, cattle ranchers, and other enterprises that cruelly kill millions of animals every year, not to end suffering but to turn a profit. The CCF's clients fear the impact that PETA has made in educating consumers about cruelty to animals in the meat, circus, and experimentation industries and in changing people's buying habits. That's why the CCF devotes a tremendous amount of time and money to attempting to mislead caring people and divide the animal-protection movement by deliberately mischaracterizing PETA's work. Why would people in the animal welfare community choose to disseminate the CCF's deliberate misinformation—and even build on it? Perhaps because they are not really in the animal welfare community.
Alleviating Suffering and Saving Lives
We welcome every animal in need—without waiting lists, far-off appointments, admission fees, or restricted hours—including those whom "no-kill" shelters have refused to accept simply because they requested euthanasia. PETA takes in dogs who are dangerously aggressive and/or suffering from advanced, deadly heartworm disease after spending their lives chained outdoors; sick and/or injured feral cats who are sometimes ravaged by the feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukemia, or other contagious, fatal diseases; elderly animals with extremely poor quality of life, who can no longer see, walk, or eat; and animals who are suffering and unadoptable for other reasons. We transfer almost every adoptable animal to local open-admission shelters (which, unlike "no-kill" shelters, don't turn away the very animals who are often the most in need) for a chance at finding a home. We also find permanent, loving homes for many animals.
Meet PETA's Rescue Team and the Animals It Helps
These are some of the animals whose suffering was ended at PETA's shelter:
Most adoptable animals who come to PETA's shelter are transferred to other open-admission shelters, such as the Virginia Beach SPCA, the Norfolk Animal Care Center, and others—that's why you don't see them in the statistics passed around on the Web. Here are just a few of the many adoptable animals whom PETA rescued and who found permanent adoptive homes:
PETA responded to a call about an "aggressive" dog. Instead we found sweet Coco, who was severely emaciated, neglected, and kept outside in a pen 24/7. We rushed her to a veterinarian. She was anemic, riddled with parasites, and about half her ideal weight. But all that changed after PETA transferred her to the VBSPCA, where she found a loving home.
This pup, Boss, had a flea allergy, and his skin was so inflamed and raw that his fur had fallen out. After a year of treatment, administered by PETA fieldworkers, his owners finally surrendered him, and PETA placed him in a foster home while he recovered. Boss is now the boss of a New York City theater teacher and his wife, a doctor at the local hospital who also volunteers at an area animal shelter in her free time.
PETA fieldwork volunteers found Blue locked inside a crate outdoors along with the remains of another dog named Dynasty, who had a shattered pelvis and had been starved to death. Blue has since been adopted into a loving home, and his former owner was sentenced to one year in prison for cruelty to animals.
Jake was a filthy matted mess and sick with heartworm disease, but once PETA took him in, he couldn't stop wagging his tail. We transferred him to the Virginia Beach SPCA, where he was treated to a much-needed makeover before finding his "forever home."
Like many kittens born outdoors, Chuck and his littermates were underweight and suffering from upper respiratory infections and intestinal parasites. They received treatment for several weeks at PETA's Sam Simon Center in Norfolk, Virginia, before finding loving, permanent homes.
The woman who was feeding this friendly young cat, America, knew that she wasn't in a good financial position to care for her properly and that it wasn't safe for America to remain outdoors—so she called PETA and asked us to find the gorgeous girl a good home, and we happily obliged.
Olivia was little more than a 5-pound skeleton with fur when a man found her wandering outside the warehouse where he works. She was suffering from an apparent sinus infection, which had caused her cheeks to swell up so much that she could barely see. She was also weak and anemic from prolonged, severe malnutrition—and only days away from needing a blood transfusion. PETA rushed her to a veterinarian, and with round-the-clock care, she beat the odds and pulled through, eventually finding the perfect home, where she would never be left outdoors without supervision again.
Stopping the Homeless-Animal Crisis at Its Source
The solution to companion-animal overpopulation and homelessness—and the suffering and death that they cause—lies in prevention. That's why PETA runs three mobile spay/neuter clinics, which, together, have sterilized more than 115,000 animals (a number that continues to rise every single day) at little to no cost to their guardians and prevented thousands upon thousands more animals from being born only to end up on the streets, in shelters, or abused. PETA also delivers free custom-built doghouses stuffed with straw bedding to dogs who are kept outside 24/7; provides animals in impoverished communities with free veterinary care; educates the public through ads and public service announcements about the need to spay, neuter, and adopt; advocates spay/neuter requirements; and more. Please visit PETASaves.com to learn more about our work to stop animal suffering and how you can help.