Victory! PETA Throws Coke Party to Toast End of Company’s Iditarod Sponsorship

Dog-Shaped Vegan Chocolates Sent to Company in Thanks for Kind Move

For Immediate Release:
February 13, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

After fierce campaigning by PETA and more than 205,000 supporters sent e-mails urging The Coca-Cola Company to end its sponsorship of the deadly Iditarod dogsled race, the company has pulled its support. Today, PETA is throwing a Coke party at all its U.S. offices and sending the company a box of delicious dog-shaped vegan chocolates in thanks for the decision, which follows PETA protests at the company’s headquarters and outside the World of Coca-Cola museum.

“People who’ve been horrified by the conditions under which dogs are forced to race are celebrating Coca-Cola’s decision to stop sponsoring this spectacle that forces dogs to run so far and so fast that their bodies often give out,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA staff members are raising a glass of Coke to the company for doing the right thing and leaving the cruel Iditarod in the dust.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that dogs used in the Iditarod are forced to run up to 100 miles a day across treacherous ice and in subzero temperatures. They sustain bloody paws, stress fractures, and other painful injuries. More than 150 dogs have died during the race’s history, and that number doesn’t include the countless ones who died during the off-season while chained to a post or who were killed simply because they couldn’t run fast enough. During the 2018 Iditarod, 350 dogs were pulled from the race, likely because of illness, exhaustion, or injury, and one died after choking on his own vomit—the leading cause of death for dogs who don’t survive the event.

Coca-Cola joins a long list of companies—including Costco, Jack Daniel’s, Maxwell House, Nestlé, Panasonic, Pizza Hut, Rite Aid, Safeway, State Farm, and Wells Fargo—that have stopped supporting the Iditarod, and PETA is calling on Chrysler to follow suit.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.