Devin Funchess’ Anti-Chaining Campaign Hits Halifax County

Panthers Wide Receiver Tells Fans, ‘Get Dogs off the Chain,’ on New PETA Billboards and in Radio PSA

For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2018

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Carolina Panthers wide receiver Devin Funchess and his beloved dog, Chapo, are hitting the streets in his adopted home state of North Carolina to urge people not to leave dogs tethered or penned up outside. The athlete appears on two new PETA billboards and stars in a radio public service announcement (PSA) for the group in which he advises anyone who witnesses cruelty to animals to report it to the authorities. The billboards are located in Roanoke Rapids and Weldon, areas that PETA’s field team visits to give food and water, sturdy doghouses, and other basic care and affection to dogs who spend their entire lives chained up or caged outside.

• The billboards are located directly across from 1003 Julian R. Allsbrook Hwy. in Roanoke Rapids and at the intersection of Poplar and W. Second streets in Weldon.
• The radio PSA will play on WYTT and WPTM three times daily between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., plus in some bonus spots between 7 p.m. and midnight, through early December.

Funchess also appears in an exclusive PETA video in which he watches footage of chained dogs—who are pit bulls like Chapo—visited by PETA’s fieldworkers. He says, “To people out there [who] chain their dogs and leave them out there in the sun and extreme weather conditions, compassion is what [you] need. You should just bring ’em inside and love on ’em, play with them. Neglecting and chaining … your dog doesn’t make you tough.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that chained dogs suffer from lack of exercise, companionship, and mental stimulation and are nearly three times more likely to attack humans than dogs who aren’t forced to spend their lives chained up.

Funchess is part of a growing list of athletes and other celebrities—including Jarvis Landry, Ryan Tannehill, Chris Culliver, Tyrann Mathieu, Tony Gonzalez, Stevie Johnson, Brandon Flowers, Terrell Suggs, and Lance Briggs—who’ve teamed up with PETA to promote kindness to animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.