Now Showing: PETA’s Billboard Asks Lincoln Kids, ‘Would You Eat Your Dog?’

Holiday-Themed Ad Near School Aims to Get Kids Hooked on Compassion for Pigs

For Immediate Release:
December 17, 2013

Contact:
Allison Lakomski 202-483-7382

A strange-looking animal will give students on their way to and from Lakeview Elementary School some food for thought this holiday season. PETA’s billboard featuring a “puplet”—an animal who’s a cross between a dog and a piglet—has just gone up at 951 W. O St. in the Capitol Beach neighborhood and asks kids, “If You Wouldn’t Eat Your Dog, Why Eat a Pig?” PETA wants to call attention to the similarities between the two animals and spark a dialog between kids and their parents right before the holidays, when pig flesh often becomes the centerpiece of the dining room table.

“Kids’ stomachs would turn if they knew how pigs on factory farms suffer every day of their lives before they endure a painful and terrifying death in order to become holiday dinner,” says PETA Director of Youth Outreach and Campaigns Marta Holmberg. “Once kids realize that pigs and other animals raised and killed for meat have all the same feelings and fears as the family dog or cat does, they might just decide to go vegan for the holidays—and every day from now on.”

Like the dogs with whom many people share their homes, pigs are pleasant-natured animals who can be loyal, playful, and protective companions. But on factory farms, they’re squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their own bodies and kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Pigs’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are cut with pliers, and males are castrated—all without any painkillers. At slaughterhouses, they’re hung upside down and bled to death, often while still conscious.

For more information as well as delicious vegan holiday recipes, please visit PETA.org.