Hollywood Animal Trainer Pays PETA to Settle Baseless Lawsuit

A Dog’s Way Home Supplier ‘Paws for Effect’ Also Pledges Not to Deal in Wild Animals

For Immediate Release:
July 8, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

A baseless defamation lawsuit from Paws for Effect, one of the animal suppliers for Sony’s A Dog’s Way Home (produced by Gavin Polone) has just been resolved in PETA’s favor. Paws for Effect filed the lawsuit after PETA pointed out that the company had racked up federal Animal Welfare Act citations, which it falsely denied—and now, it has made a substantial payment to PETA and agreed never to exhibit or broker wild animals in the future.

“Wild animals suffer the most in film and television, so PETA is pleased to have one less player involved in such exploitation,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA will keep exposing exhibitors’ behind-the-scenes conduct until Hollywood ends the use of live animals and embraces the many types of realistic and humane alternatives that exist today, such as computer-generated imagery and animatronics.”

The use of alternatives to live animals is being employed by more producers and directors than ever before—including Jon Favreau, Darren Aronofsky, and Andy Serkis—and this is particularly important when it comes to wild animals, who are often kept in small cages and deprived of exercise, enrichment, and companionship, which are all vital to their health, safety, and well-being. Many of these animals are prematurely separated from their mothers—a practice that’s cruel to both the baby and the mother. Training methods typically involve breaking their spirits through violence and fear.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.