Notorious wolf abuser pleads guilty
In other news: PETA, an organization that harms dogs, loses a lawsuit against another organization that harms dogs. Reaching full potential with pet retention programs. Good for people, good for animals, good for the planet. Ukrainian soldiers rescue animals from the front lines. Sophomoric mediocrity compromises a dog’s life.
These are some of the stories making headlines in animal protection:
PETA, an organization that harms dogs, loses a lawsuit against the AKC, another organization that harms dogs
As previously reported, PETA filed a lawsuit “to force the American Kennel Club to abandon the standards it backs for hyper-popular French bulldogs and some other breeds, contending that the influential club is promoting unhealthy physical features.”
According to PETA, an organization that routinely kills dogs and itself defends neglectful and abusive pounds that harm dogs, “The AKC’s official breed standards for the bulldog, French bulldog, pug, dachshund and Chinese shar-pei provide blueprints for the breeding of deformed, unhealthy dogs.”
In 2025, 1,718 animals — roughly five animals a day, every day — were killed by PETA, with hundreds more sent to local pounds. PETA’s known death toll of animals, including dogs and cats, tops 52,000, including young, healthy, and highly adoptable animals.
The AKC, too, harms dogs. Its “breeders of merit” program appears to be a sham, and some of the breeders have been charged with animal cruelty. It fights efforts to protect dogs in court. And even if one accepts the claim that there is a difference between “puppy mills” and “responsible commercial breeders,” as the AKC contends, dogs and puppies are not commodities — at the very least, they shouldn’t be. Not only because the forced impregnation and trade in sentient beings is inherently unethical, but because even if some breeders are not overtly abusive, there’s a further supply chain that almost always is. When there is a profit to be made on the backs of dogs, those backs are strained and often broken.
So, as even the proverbial broken clock is right twice a day, PETA is right in this case. A 2017 study based on American pet insurance claims found that dogs with flat faces “were less healthy than other dogs. They were more prone, for instance, to suffer from heart disease, pneumonia and gastrointestinal problems.”
And even those who are not against breeding admit that,
Some problems are written into breed standards — muzzles too short for effective thermoregulation, skin folds that promote infection, short backs that result in deformed vertebrae and herniated disks, etc. Others… reflect exceptional risks for health issues, often for a specific breed — death from DCM, various cancers, seizures, allergies, hip dysplasia, degenerative neurological diseases, and others.
Despite monomania about “breed standards” held by some, what a dog looks like and whether they fit some standard that someone historically and arbitrarily created — a process that involved drowning puppy after puppy who did not fit the standard until the desired look was achieved — shouldn’t matter. Ethically, it certainly doesn’t.
That said, I reported previously that “PETA’s lawsuit may be more about publicity than substantive results” and that it was going to be dismissed. This week, it was. A judge tossed out the lawsuit because PETA did not cite any substantive law that could be legally applied.
Reaching full potential with pet retention programs
One of the core programs of the No Kill Equation — the programs and services responsible for a 95% decline in national pound killing rates – is pet retention. While some surrenders of animals to shelters are unavoidable, others can be prevented — but only if shelters work with people to help them solve their problems. Keeping animals out of shelters responsibly requires innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together.