The bloated, stiff bodies of two young pit bulls were still tangled in their tethers when a PETA fieldworker first discovered them.
Although their owner had died a few days prior, her daughter claimed to have checked on the pair earlier that day. Yet both dogs remained outside—tangled and unable to reach water or shade as the sweltering temperatures climbed into the triple digits. Their frantic cries for help were ignored, and they likely desperately gasped for air before finally succumbing to heatstroke.
Every day of extreme heat means a new struggle to survive for a dog chained outside, vulnerable to an agonizing death. We need your help to reach as many of these animals as we can before it's too late.
Sadly, this isn't the first time this summer that PETA fieldworkers have seen just how deadly extreme heat can be. Three days earlier, while giving fresh water and flea-preventive medication to a dog at another property, a fieldworker noticed a foul stench coming from the doghouse of a female pit bull.
The door to the doghouse was nailed over with a plank of wood. While the owner's bedridden wife told us that she didn't know why the doghouse had been boarded shut, our fieldworker made a horrifying discovery inside it: the decomposing remains of a dog liquefying and covered with maggots.
Our fieldworkers quickly contacted local sheriff's officials after finding these three victims of neglect and summer heat, and today, we're urging leaders of that rural county to enact an emergency ordinance prohibiting unattended chaining of dogs.
For the many dogs PETA helps throughout impoverished areas of Virginia and North Carolina, we need to do more as soon as possible. Hurricane season is just getting started, and already our fieldworkers are on the ground helping dogs left to languish after Hurricane Isaias and a deadly tornado tore through the region.
There's no substitute for a loving, indoor home—particularly during the dangerous heat and powerful storms of summer. But when we can't persuade owners to let "backyard dogs" indoors as a member of the family, our team does all that we can to make their lives a bit less miserable.
That's why every single day, PETA fieldworkers are on the road, providing water, medical attention, lightweight tie-outs, and sturdy PETA-built doghouses to help neglected dogs find some protection from nature's worst. It's often the only kindness and respect that many of these animals will ever know.
Please don't wait for the next preventable tragedy to strike—not while more dogs are in danger.
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