PETA India Independence Day Billboard Campaign Encourages Desi Dog Adoption as Group Warns of Dangers of Buying Foreign Breeds

For Immediate Release:

12 August 2022 

Contact: 

Hiraj Laljani; [email protected]  

Monica Chopra; [email protected]  

PETA India Cites Recent Pit Bull Attacks and Severe Breathing Difficulties in Foreign Flat-Faced Breeds 

Pune – Just in time for Independence Day (15 August), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has placed a billboard in Pune as well as in Chandigarh, Indore, and Lucknow encouraging citizens to be patriotic by adopting a lovable desi dog from the streets or an animal shelter, rather than adding to the crisis of 80 million dogs and cats living on India’s streets by patronising breeders and pet shops that sell foreign “pedigree” breeds. The group’s billboard campaign follows two recent attacks on humans in Uttar Pradesh by pit bulls, who are specifically bred for fighting and aggression.   

The Pune billboard is located at Fergusson College Road, Opposite IDBI, Facing Deccan.   

The copy of the ad is available upon request.

“It’s irresponsible for anyone to breed or buy animals when millions of homeless Indian dogs and cats are languishing on the streets and in shelters,” says PETA India Campaigns Manager Radhika Suryavanshi. “Every time someone buys a foreign ‘purebred’ puppy or kitten from a breeder or pet shop, a desi animal loses a chance at finding a loving home. What’s more, Indian community dogs are healthier and more robust than their purebred cousins, who are often plagued by severe breathing difficulties, skin disorders, cancer, and other genetic and hereditary diseases and problems caused by being deliberately bred for unnatural traits.” 

“Pedigree” dogs sold in pet shops and by breeders are typically deprived of proper veterinary care, adequate food, exercise, affection, and socialisation. Because they’re bred for certain exaggerated physical traits, such as flat faces or long backs, many foreign dog breeds – including boxers, German shepherds, and Labrador retrievers – suffer from abnormally high rates of genetic and hereditary diseases. Common ailments found in purebred dogs include breathing problems, cancer, heart disease, bleeding disorders, skeletal malformation, and eye problems. In contrast, Indian community dogs are healthier and more robust. 

Foreign purebred dogs, like pit bulls, are also often bred for aggression and for use in criminal activity, such as dogfighting. In response to the recent news about a second pit bull attack, wherein a teenager was critically injured in Meerut just days after an elderly woman in Lucknow was mauled to death by her son’s pit bull, PETA India has urged Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Shri Parshottam Rupala to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017, to prohibit the keeping and breeding of pit bull–type dogs, as well as dogs bred for illegal racing and brachycephalic dog breeds. 

Foreign brachycephalic dogs such as pugs, popularised in India by the Vodafone commercials, are known to suffer from severe respiratory problems such as brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome and eye and skin disorders. Pugs and other brachycephalic dogs, such as Pekingese, shih tzu, and Lhasa apsos, are also predisposed to proptosis due to their shallow eye orbits – a condition in which the eye bulges out of its socket and which requires emergency surgery. Cavalier King Charles spaniels, also a brachycephalic breed, suffer from syringomyelia, a condition in which a dog’s skull is too small for their brain as they are bred for an unnaturally small head. 

Celebrities Madhuri Dixit, Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Raveena Tandon, Trisha Krishnan, Dino Morea, and Imran Khan are among those who have urged their fans to choose adoption of community cats and dogs by working with PETA India. 

PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animal 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 Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

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