After ‘Street View’ Car Possibly Hits Dog, Google Challenged to Help Chilean Pups

PETA Asks Company to Support Spay/Neuter Charity

For Immediate Release:
August 22, 2014

Contact:
Alexis Sadoti 202-483-7382

One minute, the dog was running down the street outside Santiago, Chile—the next minute, the animal was lying motionless. Did a Google Street View car hit and kill the little dog? Google says that it’s investigating, but in the meantime, PETA is challenging the search-engine giant to act now to help reduce the population of homeless “street dogs” by matching PETA’s $1,000 donation to Chile’s RIMA Foundation, which spays and neuters thousands of animals a year.

“PETA has mapped out a plan for helping homeless dogs around the world, but one of the biggest roadblocks is a lack of funds for spay and neuter surgeries—a great way to prevent more unwanted dogs and cats from ending up on the streets,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “By donating to an effective Chilean animal-protection group, Google will be preventing countless dogs from being injured and killed by vehicles.”

PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way,” is a vocal supporter of spaying and neutering and operates its own fleet of free and low-cost mobile spay/neuter clinics.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Sierra Lovelace, Google’s people programs specialist, follows.

August 22, 2014
Sierra Lovelace
People Programs Specialist
Google, Inc.

Via e-mail: [email protected]

Dear Ms. Lovelace:

I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 3 million members and supporters to thank you for investigating the possibility that a Google Street View car struck a dog while taking photos outside of Santiago, Chile, and to offer a suggestion. Whatever the findings of the investigation, the situation for homeless street dogs in that part of the world is pitiful, and we wonder whether Google would care to join us in doing something to help.

PETA is donating $1,000 to a Santiago-based organization that provides free spay-and-neuter surgeries that help prevent yet more unwanted dogs and cats from ending up on the streets, where they are vulnerable to car accidents as well as to disease, starvation, and attacks from other animals and cruel people.

PETA operates a fleet of mobile spay-and-neuter clinics that offer low- and no-cost spay, neuter, and veterinary-care services in impoverished areas of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, and the Animal Movement Information Network (RIMA) Foundation does the same thing in Santiago. In 2013, the RIMA Foundation’s mobile clinics sterilized 5,090 animals, preventing hundreds of thousands of other animals from being born into a life of squalor, danger, and suffering. Google could help support these crucial efforts to reduce the number of homeless animals on the streets.

Please let me know if you’d like to match or better our donation. Thank you for caring about homeless animals.

Kind regards,

Allison Fandl
Special Projects Coordinator