fortheloveofthedogblog / CC

This is one of those stories that starts off sad, but gets better—I promise!

Earlier this summer, a man in Louisville, Kentucky, threw a puppy off a bridge and into the Ohio River. Kelsey Westbrook, a college student who works part-time at a riverfront restaurant, saw the dog swimming in circles and immediately raced down to the water's edge and helped nearby firefighters guide the dog to safety.

Although Kelsey had originally planned to find a good home for the dog—whom she named Sunny for her loving disposition—the bond between them grew, and Kelsey soon realized that Sunny had become part of her family. So, Kelsey and her other dog—a 2-year-old rescue mix—asked Sunny to stay.

The warm-fuzzies don't stop there. Kelsey has decided to turn the attention she's receiving towards the issue of cruelty to animals. She's organizing a fundraiser at the restaurant next month, and the proceeds will go to local low-income spay-and-neuter clinics. Now that's compassionate. And because Kelsey keeps going that extra mile to help animals in need, we're happy to be sending her a Compassionate Action Award—along with some treats for Sunny, of course.

Posted by Amanda Schinke

Less than a month ago, we sent requests asking permission from the Louisville Department of Public Works to place our crippled-chicken statue, which was designed by renowned cartoonist Harry Bliss, on public property.

I should clarify—we submitted six separate applications, asking for our statue to be placed at six different locations, to nix any issue of public versus private property. We were pretty confident that we'd covered all the bases.

We've finally received a response. Apparently, Louisville has placed a 45-day moratorium on issuance of the very type of permit we requested.

Coinkydink? Methinks not. I suspect that Louisville officials and KFC don't want any attention drawn to the horrible abuse that millions of chickens suffer at the hands of KFC's suppliers.

Click here to read our response.

Posted by Karin Bennett

When I lived in the Louisville area, there were several things I thought the city could've used—like more vegan restaurants or a more extensive public transportation system. But you know what Louisville—home to the headquarters of KFC—really needs? The city is sorely in need of our chicken statue, designed by award-winning children's book author and cartoonist for The New Yorker Harry Bliss.

We're asking Louisville's Department of Public Works to allow us to install the statue in downtown Louisville for three months, starting July 15. We hope that it will draw attention to the millions of chickens who are killed each year for KFC—chickens who live out their short lives in ammonia-ridden sheds locked in cages in which there's not even room to take a single step in any direction. At the slaughterhouse, their throats are cut while they are still conscious, and they are often scalded alive.

We submitted our permit request this morning—hopefully Louisville's downtown area will have an artsy new addition in just a couple of weeks!

Posted by Amanda Schinke

The design for our pothole ad, which doesn't promote torturing chickens

You may have heard about this already: KFC is offering to fund pothole repair in five U.S. cities in exchange for ads promoting the decomposing bird bits that the company sells at its fast-food outlets.

KFC even hired a Colonel Sanders lookalike for the kickoff of the program in its hometown of Louisville.

KFC might concentrate instead on improving conditions for the chickens it abuses, but it won't, so we're offering to double the money that KFC offered the City of Louisville—if the city will use our ads against KFC cruelty on its potholes instead. After all, drivers have a right to hear the chickens' side of the story—and it isn't pretty.

Posted by Jeff Mackey

There’s a new headstone in one of the plots adjoining Colonel Sanders’ grave in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery. It’s inscribed with what our press release is calling a “moving tribute” to a "Kind Friend of Chickens." I’ll refrain from commenting on the literary merits of the poem itself, but the fact that the bright red letters running down the left side of the poem spell "KFC Tortures Birds" is a piece of undeniable genius on the part of my friend Matt Prescott, who spearheads PETA’s Kentucky Fried Cruelty Campaign, and whose name is on the headstone. In addition to ensuring that when Matt’s time eventually comes, he’ll have a prime piece of real estate waiting for him in Louisville, this has garnered us some great coverage for our KFC Campaign, including a story in US News and World Report today.

Here’s what Matt had to say about the whole thing, and you can see a photo of the tombstone below:

"This headstone will remind visitors that KFC stands for cruelty and death. We'll continue to pressure KFC executives to stop these grotesque abuses of billions of chickens—no matter how long it takes."

Earlier this year, we took our KFC Campaign up a notch by sending our fearless Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaigner, Lindsay Rajt, deep into the heart of darkness—Louisville, Kentucky, itself—to help make sure that employees at KFC’s headquarters had a constant, chilling reminder of the fact that we are not going to go away until they stop the worst abuses of the hundreds of millions of animals they kill every year for their restaurants.

(A couple of things I should note about that previous paragraph before I go on: 1) Lindsay has informed me that despite having one or two irredeemably evil residents, Louisville is in fact a very cool, vibrant, and progressive town. Not a heart of darkness. And 2) Lindsay has also registered an objection to being described as “chilling.” She is in fact a very lovely person in her free time, and only fills people’s hearts with fear in a strictly professional sense.)

Anyway, the point is that this weekend marked the grand opening of our “Kentucky Fried Cruelty” Campaign Headquarters directly across the street from a Louisville KFC. Here are some pictures:

The thing about the truth is that it just never gets old, especially when there's nudity involved. The truth about the chicks raised for KFC is that they're horrifically abused and often scalded alive. The infinitely more palatable truth about these two chicks, who happen to be colleagues of mine, is that they don't have any clothes on. The hope is that the one truth will make the other truth easier to process, and, based on the reactions of some folks in KFC's hometown of Lousiville where this protest took place, it's working like a charm. Be careful not to get the two truths mixed up though—there's absolutely no good reason for boycotting naked chicks.

There are 19 more photos where that came from in The Louisville Courier Journal. The photographer just couldn't stop for some reason ...