Alleged Would-Be Dog-Eater Prompts ‘Would You Eat Your Dog?’ Billboard

PETA is hoping the prosecutor will seek the maximum penalties—as well as a psychological evaluation—if a conviction is handed down in the Torrance County Magistrate Court for Salvador Martinez, a New Mexico man who allegedly stabbed his then-girlfriend Mandy Malone’s puppy Onyx in the heart with a screwdriver, skinned the dog, and left her flesh to marinate in the refrigerator, intending to serve the meat to Malone’s grandchildren for dinner.

PETA is also planning to place this thought-provoking billboard in the area to remind people that, when it comes to feeling pain, suffering, and love, there is no difference between a dog or  cat and a pig, cow, or chicken.

Reportedly, he threatened to “kill one and barbecue it,” but Malone didn’t believe him because he’d made those threats in the past and because she thought he loved animals.

But the next morning, Malone says, she found meat marinating in the fridge, and since she knew there wasn’t any meat in the house, she asked Martinez where it came from. He allegedly told her that it was Onyx, then suggested that if she didn’t want the meat in the house, she should have her daughter take him to his mother’s house so he could butcher and barbecue three of the other dogs there.

While these allegations are certainly disturbing, this type of cruelty takes place every day in slaughterhouses across this country—it just doesn’t normally make the news. The victims—farmed animals and fish—may look different from dogs, but they are alike in other important and relevant ways: They’re made of flesh, bone, and blood; they feel pain and terror; and they don’t want to be butchered.

If you don’t want fish and farmed animals to suffer any more than you want dogs and cats to suffer, please eat vegan foods.