Tyrann Mathieu … Tied Up?! Saints Safety Tackles Dog Chaining in New PETA PSA

For Immediate Release:
August 10, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Fans tuning in to see New Orleans Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu take on his former team the Kansas City Chiefs during Sunday’s game will catch the Super Bowl champion starring in a new anti-chaining video for PETA. In the spot, airing on the NFL Network, Mathieu tries desperately to run across a football field, only to be snapped back by the heavy chain around his leg—the sad reality, as he points out, for scores of unseen dogs who are tethered and penned in yards across the U.S.

“I’m free to leave the field when I’m done with practice, but dogs who are chained up don’t have that freedom,” he says. “Dogs are social pack animals, so they’re healthiest and happiest when they’re indoors with their families.”

Every year, PETA’s rescue team finds dead or dying dogs confined to pens and/or with heavy chains around their necks. Dogs kept penned or chained outdoors often go without adequate food, water, shelter, and veterinary care and are limited to the same few square feet of space day in and day out. Countless chained dogs have frozen to death during cold snaps or died from heatstroke on sweltering summer days. Already this year, at least 107 companion animals have reportedly died from heat-related causes across the country.

“For dogs, being chained is a life sentence without parole,” concludes Mathieu. “Don’t do it.”

Mathieu has previously appeared in PETA campaigns urging people not to leave dogs in hot cars or outside in the winter. He is part of a long list of compassionate athletes—including Ryan Tannehill, Chris Godwin, Cam Newton, and Dont’a Hightower—who have helped PETA stick up for animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.