L.A. Auto Show Faces Protests Over Iditarod Sponsorship

PETA Supporters Will Be Chained to Barrels to Demand That Chrysler Franchise Cut Ties With Deadly Dog Race

For Immediate Release:
November 21, 2019

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

On Friday, PETA protesters will be chained to barrels—mimicking the conditions endured by hundreds of dogs raised for the Iditarod—and will brandish signs proclaiming, “Chrysler: Stop Driving Dogs to Their Deaths,” outside the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the auto company will be promoting its vehicles. The reason? A Chrysler franchise in Anchorage, Alaska, continues to sponsor the Iditarod, a deadly dog race in which the animals are forced to run approximately 1,000 miles in subzero temperatures, causing some dogs to die from pneumonia and injuries and leaving others injured. The protest follows PETA’s first-ever video exposé of several high-profile mushers’ properties, which revealed that the dogs’ only protection—even when the wind chill dropped to 19 degrees below zero—were dilapidated, open-faced boxes or plastic barrels to which they were chained in the ice and snow.

When:    Friday, November 22, 12 noon

Where:    1201 S. Figueroa St. (at the intersection with W. Pico Boulevard), Los Angeles

“Dogs used for this horrific race are chained outdoors in freezing weather, denied veterinary care, and even raced until they inhale their own vomit and eventually die,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Chrysler’s Iditarod support is a badge of shame, and PETA wants the car company to end it.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that more than 150 dogs have died since the Iditarod began, and that number doesn’t even include the scores of dogs who have been killed for not being fast enough.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.