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    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble
    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble
    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble
    Ebook584 pages6 hours

    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble

    By Ingrid Newkirk

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    About this ebook

    With more than two million members and supporters, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the world's largest animal-rights organization, and its founder and president, Ingrid Newkirk, is one of the most well-known and most effective activists in America. She has spearheaded worldwide efforts to improve the treatment of animals in manufacturing, entertainment, and elsewhere.

    Every day, in laboratories, food factories, and other industries, animals by the millions are subjected to inhumane cruelty. In this accessible guide, Newkirk teaches readers hundreds of simple ways to stop thoughtless animal cruelty and make positive choices.

    For each topic, Newkirk provides hard facts, personal insight, inspiration, ideas, and resources, including:

    • How to eat healthfully and compassionately

    • How to adopt animals rather than support puppy mills

    • How to make their vote count and change public opinion

    • How to switch to cruelty-free cosmetics and clothing

    • How to choose amusements that protect rather than exploit animals.

    With public concern for the well-being of animals greater than ever—particularly among young people—this timely, practical book offers exciting and easy ways to make a difference.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMay 26, 2009
    ISBN9781429984805
    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble
    Author

    Ingrid Newkirk

    Ingrid Newkirk founded PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the largest animal rights organization in the world, with affiliates in eight countries, in 1980. She is the author of Save the Animals! 101 Things You Can Do, Kids Can Save the Animals, The Compassionate Cook, and several other books available in multiple languages.

    Read more from Ingrid Newkirk

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    • 5/5
      When I received an email offering to send me this book to review, I knew immediately that I had to have it. I received it in the mail yesterday (along with a copy to give away to one lucky commenter, YAY!) and I stayed up until 5 this morning reading it. And it's almost 10 now, so I haven't had much sleep. Honestly, there were times that I cried reading this book and there were many times that I had to put it down and take a breather. This is an extremely intense book and at times was hard to stomach. I love animals and I love our environment and I'm not perfect but I want to do everything in my power to make a difference in this world. Even if it's only for one human or one rabbit. I have 3 dogs who I love so very much. They have completely different personalities just like humans. Some people say that animals don't have souls but I don't believe that. My dogs are treated like part of the family and I wouldn't have it any other way. Here are some facts about my doggies so that you can get to know them.Precious - A friend of mine had a dog who had puppies and I ended up getting one of them. Precious is part Shepherd, Lab, Chow, and Husky. She chose her own name. The day that I got her (she was 8 weeks old) and she crawled underneathe my bed and I was trying to get her to come out. I don't know why but I just kept saying doggie names and then saying come on. When I said Precious, she came out. So that's how she got her name. When she was little and we were trying to potty train her, we put a gate a the top of the second half of the steps (bi-level) and she just roamed around downstairs. My dad is diabetic and his sugar was too high and he ended up falling down the first half of the steps. Precious took a running leap over the gate to get to my dad. She was not very big at this time and I have no idea how she was able to do it. From that point on, we kept the gate up knowing that she could just come right over it, but she was really good and stayed downstairs until we had her fully potty trained and then she was able to roam the house. Precious is a diva, in every way. She loves baths, she loves to have her hair brushed. In the winter time we use a hair dryer on her. She is extremely smart and she has no idea that she's a dog. I love her so much.Bubba - I got Bubba from the SPCA and he's a Chow mix. He's quiet and lazy. He thinks that you should be petting him at all times. I have only seen him growl and turn mean looking twice and both times it was because some shady characters were coming around me. He is extremely protective, especially of children. Whenever I would take him out to go to the bathroom, he would head to wherever he heard kids playing. One time my cousins came over and I was holding the 2 year old and I threw up in the air playing and Bubba started barking at me, he did not like this so I had to stop. He is especially protective of my nephew, Damien. Damien practically tackles Bubba and Bubba loves the attention.Reese - I got Reese from the SPCA and we almost lost her after 2 hours. We took her home and were letting her get used to her new home. Our plan was to take her to the vet the next morning to have her checked out and to get the vaccines that the SPCA doesn't give them. After 2 hours in the apartment, Reese started pooping pure blood. It was so sad and it literally broke my heart. I called around to all the vets and they kept saying that she needed to be seen right away but that their office was closing. So I kept trying. I was determined to do everything in my power to save this little puppy. Finally I talked with someone at Banfield who said for us to bring her in right away. We did and they did the parvo test and Reese had parvo. I was terrified that she was going to die. We'd only known this little puppy for two hours but I was already in love with her. She had to stay at Banfield overnight, which broke my heart but I trusted these people. They were so kind and I could tell that they were going to do everything they could to save my baby. The next day we went to visit her (we visited 4 or 5 times a day) and she was already acting so much better. The people at Banfield took turns going in and playing with her. She had to be kept in isolation until the parvo was completely gone. After we were able to bring Reese home, I called the SPCA and I told them what had happened. She had supposedly been vaccinated for Parvo but the paper that they gave us with her shot records had the day after we got her as the date she received her shots. When I called them, they said I could bring her back and exchange her. Like she's a freaking sweater. I told them no that they needed to do something about this and they need to check the other dogs for Parvo. After fighting with them for a while, they reimbursed us for half of the vet bills. I wanted to let them know that this was unacceptable. It had nothing to do with the money and everything to do with trying to save another puppy from dying of a disease that is preventable. She's still known as the Parvo Puppy whenever we take her to the vet. They all still remember my little angel who survived.This book is filled with little ways to make a big difference. Animals can't make themselves be heard and they need us to be their voice. I think everyone should read this book to fully understand what goes on behind closed doors. It's not an easy book to read but standing up for something is never easy. I hope that you will take the time to help someone in need.

    Book preview

    The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights - Ingrid Newkirk

    PART ONE

    The Issues

    1

    Not What but Who Are Animals?

    To comprehend the organs of the horse, is not to comprehend the horse himself.

    —LIN YUTAN, CHINESE PHILOSOPHER

    Let me start with a true story about a rhinoceros. These animals are hard for people to understand. They aren’t furry or big-eyed or easy to pet, and a person might be forgiven for imagining that a charging rhino could flatten you like a locomotive.

    Anna Merz, the founder of the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary in Kenya, has lived with rhinos for many years. She now realizes that these enormous animals live in a completely different sphere from ours. They are the Mr. Magoos of the animal kingdom, barely able to see a thing, and their world is dominated by smell and hearing. Anna also realizes that different does not mean stupid. In fact, the rhinos’ communication system is quite complex. To communicate, they use body language, a wide variety of calls, and even urine or droppings as markers. Perhaps most interesting, they use a highly complicated method of regulating their breathing, a sort of Morse code, to talk to one another.

    Rhinos are not alone here. Behavioral biologists have discovered seismic communication in elephants and mice. Male Malaysian tree frogs use their toes methodically to click out messages, and female frogs send electronic signals by vibrating the small saplings in which they live.

    People may fear rhinos because they do not understand them, but Anna Merz says that fear is very much a two-way street, with most of the traffic coming from the opposite direction. "Most wild rhinos are obsessed by their terror of humans" because people have chased them, separated them from their calves, and slaughtered family members in front of them, cutting off their tusks for sale as aphrodisiacs.

    The animals’ fear makes close observation difficult. In the course of her work, however, Anna was lucky enough to raise and release a bull rhino called Makara, who had never witnessed an attack by hunters and so never learned to fear people. Over time, he actually came to regard Anna as a friend.

    On one occasion, Anna was out with a tracker when the two of them saw a rhino moving very slowly toward them, looking very odd. When he got close, they saw it was Makara, and that he was completely entangled in barbed wire.

    Barbed wire is terrifying to animals. When horses get tangled in even a little piece of the stuff, they invariably go wild with panic. Makara had recognized the sound of Anna’s car engine and had come to her for help.

    Anna got out of the car, and Makara, although trembling all over, gave her the greeting breathing. Somehow, Anna managed to get a handkerchief between Makara’s eye and the jagged wire that was cutting into it, then took off her jacket and worked it under the wire that was cutting into his huge thigh. Anna and the tracker had no wire cutters with them, so the tracker used his cutlass and a flat stone to cut the wire while Anna disentangled it as it came free.

    Anna talked reassuringly to the big bull rhino for the forty minutes or more it took to get the job done. The whole time Makara stood stock-still, except for the tremors that shook his body.

    When the last bit of wire fell away, he breathed a grateful good-bye and moved slowly back into the bush.

    Anna knew she had witnessed an act of outstanding intelligence and courage. Wire is terrifying for animals to comprehend, yet Makara had known to come for help. Still more incredible was the control he had exercised over himself while he was being slowly extricated, although the process must have been painful to him. And, although Makara knew Anna’s voice well, she had never before attempted to touch him.

    Perhaps if we could sit rhino hunters down and get them to see that a rhino is not just an object to line up in their sights, not just a meal or trophy on the hoof, but a living, thinking, feeling player in what behaviorist Dr. Roger Fouts calls the great symphony of life in which each of us is assigned a different instrument, it might be harder for them to raise their rifles to their shoulders and blow these magnificent beings to kingdom come. Perhaps not. But lightning-quick realizations do happen.

    Take, for example, a case in upstate New York one winter when the lakes and rivers were frozen solid. Two hunters, a father and his son, were out looking for game, when they came across a deer lying on the ice in the middle of a frozen river.

    Seeing them, the deer struggled to get up, but the slippery surface prevented her from rising. Every time she struggled, she fell back hard on the ice, her legs splaying out from under her. The hunters stood back and watched her trying to right herself, each time without success, until she seemed too exhausted to try again.

    The father and son skated cautiously up to the doe. Like most hunters, they had never been really close to a live deer before, except to deal a final blow to their prey. The son, a man in his twenties, said later that when he bent down and put out his hand, he was afraid she would bite him. He reached out slowly, and the deer leaned forward and gently smelled the back of his hand, then looked up at him with her big eyes. The younger man began petting

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