NASCAR Star Daniel Suárez IsDriven to Help Chained Dogs in PETA Campaign

For Immediate Release:
June 10, 2024

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Appearing on a sky-high billboard erected outside the Charlotte Motor Speedway, superstar driver Daniel Suárez—who added a second NASCAR Cup Series win to his résumé with a stunning three-wide finish at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in February—waves the red flag on keeping dogs chained or penned outdoors in a new campaign for PETA.

“The way I treat my animals is like family. We wouldn’t chain our kids or siblings, mom and dad, or grandpa,” Suárez says in a heartfelt video. “Chaining is 100% wrong. And it doesn’t matter if it’s North Carolina or anywhere else in the country or in the world, you know? I will definitely never leave my dog outside.”

Every day, PETA’s field rescue team finds sick, injured, dying, and dead dogs chained outdoors without adequate food, water, shelter, or veterinary care, confined to the same few square feet of space day in and day out amid their own waste. Many spend their existence trapped at the end of a heavy chain, covered with fleas and other parasites, malnourished, and essentially forgotten. Chained dogs have frozen to death during cold snaps and died from heatstroke on sweltering summer days. PETA urges everyone to keep their dogs indoors with the rest of the family and push their local and state legislators to pass laws that ban unattended tethering of dogs and implement animal care standards that require adequate shelter, space, and more.

Suárez, who attributes his passion for helping animals to his father, who would rescue dogs from the streets of Monterrey, Mexico, previously starred in a PETA video warning people not to leave dogs in hot cars. He’s part of a long list of athletes—including Tyrann Mathieu, Ryan Tannehill, Chris Godwin, Enes Kanter Freedom, Lonnie Walker, Alex Morgan, Christen Press, Ty Lawson, and Candace Parker—who have teamed up with PETA to promote kindness to animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.