Laura Vandervoort Has a Warm Heart for Cold Dogs

In a recent video for PETA, actor Laura Vandervoort forces herself to stay as long as she can in an industrial walk-in freezer to demonstrate the pain, panic, and danger that dogs endure when they’re left outside 24/7 during frigid winter months. Wearing just a few layers of clothing, Vandervoort huddles and shivers for warmth in the massive freezer at Los Angeles’ Taglyan Complex.

Born and raised in Toronto, Laura is used to cold weather, but even she has to acknowledge that the freezing temperatures are too much to take—and too much for “outdoor dogs” to endure.

While Laura can spend the season indoors, dogs left outside without protection from the elements suffer during the freezing winter months. Dogs who spend their lives outdoors on a chain or in a pen without adequate shelter are often ignored or forgotten altogether. If it’s too cold for you, it’s too cold for them.

Many dogs are considered beloved members of the family and do have warm, loving homes, but others are less fortunate. Those who are chained, penned, or simply left in backyards are often “out of sight, out of mind”—deprived of adequate food, water, and veterinary care. Many are also denied adequate shelter—if they are provided with any at all—and often have nothing more than an overturned trash bin or a plastic barrel to protect them from the elements. On freezing winter nights, they shiver desperately and curl up in a ball in an attempt to fight off the cold. Dogs are emotional beings capable of loneliness, pain, and frustration. They’re referred to as “man’s best friend” for a reason: They crave human companionship and deserve a loving human family.

By providing “backyard dogs”—who are struggling to survive long days and nights outside in the cold rain and snow this winter—with a warm doghouse, you can help shelter them from the harsh elements for years to come.