Urgent! Free Straw for ‘Backyard Dogs’ in Roanoke Rapids as Temps Plummet Well Below Freezing

City Hosts PETA Billboard Urging Owners to Take Animals Indoors as PETA Offers Helping Hand to Penned Dogs Left Outside Against All Advice

For Immediate Release:
February 9, 2016

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Roanoke Rapids, N.C. — As temperatures plummet well below freezing in Roanoke Rapids—leaving many unlucky dogs confined to backyard pens without adequate protection from the cold—PETA is descending on  with a massive stock of straw bedding, to be given away free to local residents from noon until 3 p.m. on Thursday. Residents may also call PETA’s Community Animal Project toll-free at 1-800-566-9768 to make arrangements for delivery if they are unable to go to the giveaway.

While animal-protection agencies are warning everyone to take dogs and other small animals indoors to protect them and prevent their bone-chilling pain, reports of freezing dogs and last-minute calls for help have prompted the straw giveaways. No dog or other animal left outside for long is safe when a bitter cold snap hits. In fact, such weather often proves deadly.

Where:           Tractor Supply Company, 1350 Julian Allsbrook Hwy., Roanoke Rapids

When:             Thursday, February 11, noon to 3 p.m.

PETA has already posted billboards in and around the city featuring a shivering chained dog next to the words “Cold? Please, Take Your Dog Inside” to remind residentsthat dogs are miserable, suffer, and even die in cold weather.

“Every dog deserves to be part of a family, but the least that can be done is to take animals indoors during weather extremes,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “Meanwhile, PETA is offering a small—yet potentially lifesaving—measure of help during frigid winter days and nights.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that dogs who are chained outdoors spend their entire lives eating, sleeping, and eliminating in the same few square feet of space. PETA’s fieldworkers have come to the rescue of many “backyard dogs” in North Carolina, including Blackie, who had only a garbage can for shelter before fieldworkers delivered a sturdy doghouse in time for cold weather. Nero was found in a muddy pit with a heavy chain wrapped around his neck, and he was readily surrendered when fieldworkers spoke to his owner. He found love in a foster home and will soon be up for adoption. Chips—whose old doghouse had numerous holes in it—received a brand-new shelter and was also spayed by PETA.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.