For Immediate Release:
13 December 2024
Contact:
Hiraj Laljani; HirajL@petaindia.org
Sanskriti Bansore; SanskritiB@petaindia.org
Delhi—As Delhi’s air pollution maintains hazardous levels, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has erected a billboard in the city featuring a masked woman alongside a panting pug struggling to breathe with a tagline that reads, ‘Don’t buy breathing-impaired breeds’. The campaign draws attention to the plight of flat-faced dogs like pugs who struggle to breathe due to their abnormal and manmade physical anatomy—a struggle that gets even more challenging in polluted air.
This billboard is located near Fortis Hospital facing Vasant Kunj, Delhi, 110070.
“Breeders deliberately breed dogs with deformed faces and airways that shorten their lives and cause a multitude of health problems – just to achieve a particular look,” says PETA India Director of Veterinary Services Dr Mini Aravindan. “PETA India is calling on everyone to stop buying dogs with debilitating deformities and to adopt a dog in need from an animal shelter instead.”
Pugs, popularised by Vodafone commercials, and other breathing-impaired breeds like French and English bulldogs, Pekingese, Boston terriers, boxers, Cavalier King Charles spaniels, and shih tzus suffer from a debilitating and sometimes fatal condition called brachycephalic syndrome. This can make even going for a walk, chasing a ball, running, and playing – the things that make dogs’ lives joyful and fulfilling – difficult. PETA India had urged the Union Cabinet Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Shri Purshottam Rupala, to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017, to prohibit breeding these animals.
PETA India also warns that most pet shops and breeders are illegal as they aren’t registered with state animal welfare boards. They typically deprive dogs of proper veterinary care and adequate food, exercise, affection, and opportunities for socialisation – in addition to fuelling the companion animal overpopulation crisis. PETA India encourages those with the time, patience, love, and resources to welcome a dog into their home to adopt one from an animal shelter.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
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