More Info on Companion Animals

For every lucky dog or cat who has a comfortable home, nutritious food, and loving guardians, countless other dogs and cats are suffering at the hands of incompetent or abusive people, are struggling to survive on the streets, or are waiting in animal shelters for a good home.

In communities across the U.S., countless dogs are kept chained up—forced to eat, sleep, and relieve themselves in the same filthy patch of dirt, far from the human companions they long to be with. Others are forced to wear collars that deliver painful shocks for normal behaviors such as barking, or they have their tails and ears cut off based on human aesthetic preferences. Many are dumped on the streets like trash when their guardians tire of caring for them—and some fare even worse.

Across the U.S., 6 to 8 million stray and abandoned animals enter animal shelters every year, and about half of them must be euthanized because of a lack of good homes. Breeders, pet shops, puppy mills, and people who don’t spay or neuter their animals are fueling this crisis by bringing more animals into a world that is already desperately short of good homes.

Fortunately for animals, there are people who care. PETA’s Animal Birth Control (ABC) campaign is dedicated to ending the needless suffering of companion animals. By educating animal guardians about the need to spay or neuter their cats and dogs and by offering low-cost sterilizations in our “Spay and Neuter Immediately, Please” (SNIP) and ABC mobile clinics, we can prevent thousands upon thousands of animals from ending up homeless or in the hands of callous and abusive people.