Mötley Crüe’s John 5 and His Dog Strike a Chord With New ‘Always Adopt! Never Buy’ PETA Campaign

For Immediate Release:
August 28, 2024

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Guitar virtuoso John 5 is an expert when it comes to good licks—and he’s declaring that the best ones come from adopted dogs, in a new campaign for PETA. Ahead of his upcoming solo tour, the rock icon appears alongside his affectionate rescued dog, Churro, urging everyone to adopt dogs and cats from shelters and never to buy animals from pet shops or breeders—which churn out litter after litter of puppies and kittens into a world already bursting at the seams with homeless ones.

In an accompanying video spot, John 5 shares how his family adopted Churro—a hairless Chinese crested mix—after he had been abandoned as a puppy and left in a box in the desert.

“It’s heartbreaking to even think about. We had to get Churro—there were no ifs, ands, or buts,” John 5 says in the video. “We were lucky enough to adopt him, and he’s just the best. … We literally can’t go anywhere without him—he’s always with us. He’s just a part of the family.”

Churro’s story highlights the fact that virtually any breed of dog can be found in a shelter or through a breed-specific rescue group. With around 70 million homeless dogs and cats in the U.S. at any given time, animal shelters across the country have been overrun for years. Some shelters with misguided policies are warehousing dogs for months or even years and turning away animals, leaving the most vulnerable ones with nowhere to go—and those who reproduce make the companion animal overpopulation crisis worse. That’s why PETA urges shelters to accept all animals in need, advises guardians to have their animal companions spayed or neutered, and asks everyone to adopt animals instead of buying them from breeders or pet stores.

John 5 is part of a long list of celebrities—including Kathy Griffin, Lisa Ann Walter, Ron Perlman, Tom Hardy, John Stamos, Ryan Eggold, Theo Rossi, and Cristin Milioti—who have teamed up with PETA to promote adoption.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.