PETA is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction on cruelty charges of the person(s) responsible for abandoning a terminally ill dog on Route 23. The canine, a cane corso later named Barney, was spotted on the side of the road on Thursday by a passerby, who initially believed that his leg was swollen due to being hit by a car. Barney was rushed to a veterinarian, who determined that he was suffering from advanced bone cancer, an extremely painful and irreversible condition.
Investigators believe that Barney was abandoned by someone who knew about his condition but failed to seek medical attention or assistance. Because he was in so much pain, the decision was made to euthanize him.
No leads or suspects have been identified, so PETA is asking for the public’s help. Would you please share this information with your audience? It may be the only way to find the person(s) responsible.
“Rather than getting treatment for Barney’s agonizing condition, someone dumped this suffering, sick dog on the side of the road,” says PETA Senior Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “PETA asks anyone with information to come forward immediately, as there may be more suffering animals in this person’s custody.”
Anyone with information related to the case should contact the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office at 518-828-0601.
On Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every other day of the year, thousands of animals are chained or penned outside 24/7 in all weather extremes, and many of them are hungry, sick, and lonely. Fortunately, PETA fieldworkers are there to help. We provide sick and injured animals with veterinary care, organize or participate in community events to raise awareness and promote empathy, and do everything we can to help local animals. See how we took action for animals in our Norfolk, Virginia, community from October to December 2023:
5 Ways PETA Fieldworkers Helped Animals in Our Community in Late 2023
1. We Arranged Spay/Neuter Appointments for Thousands of Animals
The veterinary staff on our mobile spay/neuter clinics sterilized 3,237 companion animals, including Coco, who was just one of the 181 animals PETA’s Community Animal Project (CAP) fieldworkers transported for free to and from their no-cost spay/neuter appointments.
We also sterilized 104 cats and a dog in just one day in Hayes, Virginia—a community that’s overrun with homeless cats—treated a cat for a hernia, and removed another cat’s injured, necrotic tail. The surgeries were free and sponsored by a donor in memory of his feline companion.
2. We Rescued Animals From Bad Situations and Gave Them a Chance at Adoption
Dave, a young puppy kept chained outside, was suffering from a horrific flea affliction as well as internal parasites, anemia, and mange.
We gave him the veterinary care he desperately needed, and he spent several weeks recovering in protective police custody before we transferred him to Reba’s Animal Rescue in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he was quickly adopted.
PETA fieldworkers also secured the relinquishment of Pearl, a dog we had been visiting for some time, although we were refused custody until we found her companion, Thor, deceased and still chained just a few feet away from her.
After some TLC, we transferred Pearl to the Chesapeake Humane Society, where she was soon adopted into a family with another dog. In total, we transferred 123 companion animals to our shelter partners for a chance at adoption.
The PETA team also found homes for many other companion animals, including Archer and Lydia, Burt Reynolds, Sandy, and Karate.
3. We Engaged With Our Community to Help Teach Empathy for Animals
We participated in the annual Grand Illumination Parade in Norfolk, during which costumed volunteers and one of our mobile clinics shared the animal-friendly message “Make Their Sweet Dreams Come True. Unchain, Uncage, Make Them Family.”
We also participated in the annual One City Celebration in Newport News, Virginia, by offering spay/neuter surgeries in exchange for nonperishable vegan food items. We sterilized 39 animals and donated the items to the city’s food drive.
4. We Helped People Keep and Care For Their Animals
We provided 51 dogs, including Chocolate—who had been kept outside in a small wire crate without protection from the elements—with a custom-made, insulated doghouse and a long, light-weight tether, greatly improving their living conditions. Fieldworkers visited hundreds of other “backyard dogs” kept outside 24/7 in the increasingly cold weather and ensured that they were given shelter, insulating straw bedding, food, and treatment for parasites.
One of the 492 requests for assistance that PETA received was for senior dog Rosie, whose guardian couldn’t afford surgery to treat her potentially fatal uterine infection. We performed an emergency spay surgery and accepted a donation that her family could afford, an amount approximately one-tenth of what most veterinarians would have charged for her care.
5. We Provided Suffering Animals With Free End-of-Life Services
When beloved senior dog Dunkin’s potentially cancerous tumor ruptured, he stopped eating and became very lethargic. His family brought him to PETA’s shelter for free end-of-life services. He was among the 190 animals we euthanized this quarter at no cost to families who couldn’t afford this vital humane service.
Their guardians filled out postcards asking their state legislators to safeguard our ability to offer free end-of-life relief. This quarter, 627 of our constituent families sent postcards to their elected officials in support of our services, including free compassionate euthanasia—a service that only PETA provides in the region.
Dogs should never be left outside unattended, but when they’re outside and deprived of access to water, food, or shelter, the situation becomes an emergency—and local authorities should be contacted immediately. If they’re unresponsive, contact PETA for help. Anyone who leaves animals outside to suffer in severe weather may face criminal charges. Dogs’ well-being—even their lives—could depend on you.
Breaking news: Today New York State Police arrested harness racing trainer Frederick Bourgault for allegedly beating a horse named Finish Line so violently that he had to be euthanized. Bourgault was charged with two felonies: interference with or injury to certain domestic animals and criminal mischief in the second degree.
The incident reportedly took place in mid-July 2023 at Pine Bush Training Facility in Pine Bush, New York. PETA was informed of the alleged beating by former trainer Mike Petrelli and immediately contacted the police.
Finish Line’s body, which had been buried on the training facility’s property, was exhumed and sent to a laboratory for a necropsy.
Photos supplied by Mike Petrelli showing the exhumation of Finish Line
Photos supplied by Mike Petrelli showing the exhumation of Finish Line
The Violent Track Record of Trainer Frederick Bourgault
Bourgault, who has trained horses forced to race at Tioga Downs and Monticello Raceway, was suspended in 2020 by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario in Canada for beating a horse who had placed fifth in a race. He has a long history of violations in New York state and has been fined and/or suspended for kicking horses and for excessive use of the whip.
In 2022, the New York State Gaming Commission fined Bourgault for whipping a horse after a race and directed him to take an anger management course. In April 2023, Bourgault was again fined for excessive whipping.
Frederick Bourgault is a repeat offender who should have been booted from racing years ago, the first time he whipped a horse after a race was over.
—PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo
PETA questions why the gaming commission and tracks have allowed Bourgault, with his documented history of violence and violations, to continue racing and why New York taxpayers are forced to support the harness racing industry with $100 million in subsidies every year.
PETA is urging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to speak out against a sleep deprivation experiment so cruel it has been given the highest pain classification.
The experiment would blast noises at tiny marmoset monkeys as loud as those from a lawn mower every 15 minutes for three consecutive nights a week for up to two months—supposedly to learn about human age-related cognitive decline. DeSantis would be a powerful voice for good science as the leader of the state with the highest per-capita population of older Americans, who deserve sound science.
“Any relevance to science in these tests is pure fiction, because disrupting monkeys’ sleep over multiple nights is as pointless as it is cruel,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is urging Gov. DeSantis to condemn these indefensible tests and NIH to pull its funding.”
A caged marmoset in the laboratory of Agnès Lacreuse
University of Massachusetts–Amherst experimenter Agnès Lacreuse, whose bizarre menopause tests on marmosets have come under fire, has proposed the sleep disruption experiments at a cost of $400,000 to U.S. taxpayers. She chose the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison—a site that lacks the necessary equipment, according to documents obtained by PETA, and is beset by federal animal welfare violations—to conduct the tests.
Lacreuse’s experiments will blast noises measuring from 60 to 90 decibels every 15 minutes during the night. The monkeys will be startled awake as many as 46 times during the night for a total of 276 minutes for three consecutive days over the weeks of the study. This is a scientifically flawed premise, because elderly humans experience poor sleep due to biological and neurological reasons, not typically because they’re startled awake regularly by loud noises.
Lacreuse also misrepresented the current science on her grant application to NIH. She claimed that using non-animal methods would be impossible and that no human data were available about the role that sleep disturbance plays in Alzheimer’s disease. But multiple NIH-funded studies using human volunteers have already investigated this connection.
