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Well, Jessica's thinking about opening her heart and home to a new pooch and word on the street is that she "wants a rescue dog."

We're thrilled to hear that she's thinking about rescuing a dog instead of buying one from a breeder. Today, we wrote to the star to urge her adopt her new friend from an animal shelter, pointing out that millions of dogs are euthanized at shelters every year simply because there aren’t enough homes for all of them. Even if she has her heart set on a particular breed, there are many purebreds at open-admission animal shelters and certainly many who are in the care of breed-specific rescue groups.

We hope, hope, hope that Jessica Simpson will join the long list of caring celebrities, including Charlize Theron, Katherine Heigl, Kyra Sedgwick, Audrina Patridge, and Alicia Silverstone, who have saved a life (or two or three) by adopting homeless animals.

Posted by Karin Bennett

PETA's Rescue Department is always on call to help animals out of life-threatening emergencies. Case in point: A rescue worker was recently awakened by a page regarding an anhinga who had somehow become entangled in a tree limb. Anhingas are tropical birds found in the Everglades, and this Florida caller was worried about the frightened animal, who was hanging upside down and thrashing about, frantically trying to get free.

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We contacted law-enforcement officials immediately, and they arrived within minutes. They freed the bird and then took her to a local wildlife rehabilitator, where she received stitches and quiet recovery time to help her injuries heal before her release.

The threats to birds, as well as land and aquatic animals, are everywhere and often involve plastic debris (like six-pack holders), fishing line, netting, and bird-deterrent mesh. A recent news report about a skunk who was freed after he'd gotten his head stuck in a peanut butter jar is yet another example of how paying close attention to wildlife can save a life.

Please always try to help wild critters out of dangerous situations, and consider how debris can harm animals. Cut up six-pack rings, rinse out recyclables, and flatten cans, and safely dispose of others' carelessly discarded fishing line when you find it. Anhingas, skunks, and other animals thank you in advance for caring.

Posted by Karin Bennett

For those of you who receive PETA's quarterly magazine, Animal Times, you're in for a treat (as always) when the latest issue hits mailboxes this month. If you haven't gotten around to subscribing (it's free with your PETA membership), here's one of the many great articles you'd find—an exclusive sneak peek at PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk's newest book, The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights. Don't say we never gave you anything:

Man's best friend isn't, in many parts of the world. In Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China, among other places, dogs are kept in the burning sun in small cages behind restaurants, often with tin cans shoved over their muzzles and their broken forelegs tied behind their backs. They are "tenderized" by being beaten while alive and then strangled to death and skinned for their flesh. In Thailand, dog-hide factory trucks prowl the streets, offering to trade plastic buckets for live dogs, who will be slaughtered and made into bags, drum skins, and golf-club covers.

I grew up in India, where—although dogs are not eaten—mange-covered and starving stray animals are so common and so pathetic that they can't help but capture your attention. In the pounds, death was courtesy of a crude electrocution machine that seared the animals' skin and often set their fur on fire or via blows from men wielding billy clubs.

In Taiwan—which has a robust economy as well as a large Buddhist population—one would think that animals would fare much better. The reality is quite the opposite. In Taiwan's pounds, death for dogs can come from live burial (digging a pit and throwing the dogs into it), electrocution, poison-laced food, starvation, or drowning. In April 1998, I rescued 11 dogs from the Keelung city pound's drowning tank and extracted a promise from the minister of the environment to immediately stop drowning animals. The city administrators have been good to their word, but all these years later, animals in Sanchung, Tu Chung, and other cities continue to suffer, confined to cramped, filthy cages at severely crowded pounds. Pressure is still desperately needed to bring about reforms.

I used to harbor the illusion that all animals in Europe and North America were well-treated. But we have plenty of room for improvement too—to say the least.

A Baltimore, Maryland, rescue group called Alley Animals has seen it all, right here in America: animals with festering wounds from slingshots and bottles, cats with elastic bands embedded in their necks, kittens blinded and used as bait in pitbull fights, abandoned Easter rabbits, a rooster wearing a broken ankle leash, and even a green iguana—now the most common exotic throwaway pet, according to news reports.

Alley Animals operates simply and on a shoestring. When dusk falls on Baltimore, the group's volunteers drive into the sprawling old city's most rundown areas. Their job is to find the animal waifs and strays who creep out from their hiding places when the city grows quiet, knowing that they are less visible to juveniles armed with free time and a rock or a firecracker.

One evening, volunteer Alice Arnold and her partner for that night's trip, Eric, were just leaving an alley after putting out food when Eric said, "Did you see that puppy?"

He pointed to an overturned reclining chair amid the trash, where a tiny head was sticking out ever so slightly, the puppy's reddish-brown fur almost blending in with the color of the old chair in the alley's black shadows. The stuffing had come out of the chair, allowing the dog to claim its interior as her shelter from a world that had rejected her.

Within a week of her rescue, it was obvious that the puppy—now known as "Stuffing"— was very intelligent and lovable. After a few weeks, Stuffing had gained weight, was paper-trained, and spent every night snuggled up in bed with her new human friend. Alice says that to look at her now, no one would ever guess that this happy little girl spent the first months of her life eating from trash cans and sleeping inside an overturned chair in a dark alley.

Most people don't think that the problems of strays and chained "backyard" dogs have anything to do with them. But they do. The biggest nightmare plaguing domesticated animals in our society does not involve the wanton acts of violence directed toward them by cruel humans. Rather, it involves thoughtlessness by otherwise intelligent and caring people who simply do not understand what or who dogs and cats really are, and what they need to thrive.

Want to read the rest of Ingrid's new book? You can order your very own copy at PETACatalog.com. In the meantime, you can find out what you can do to help strays and other neglected and abused animals here.

Posted by Alisa Mullins

In case you forgot how smart, social, and absolutely adorable pigs are, meet Sherlock. Found wandering down a rural road in Suffolk, Virginia, this little guy was captured and taken to the local animal shelter:

When he was found, Sherlock was still a baby, but he was already castrated and his tail had obviously been docked. That means that this plucky little piglet likely fell off a truck headed to a growing/finishing barn—which is what the piggy flesh industry calls the factories that are used to fatten up little pigs like Sherlock for slaughter. On factory farms, piglets are taken away from their moms when they are less than 1 month old. Workers cut off their tails, clip their teeth with pliers, and castrate the males—all without painkillers. The animals spend their entire lives in extremely crowded pens on tiny slabs of filthy concrete. It gets even more heartbreaking when you factor in the abuse that these animals face: A recent undercover investigation of an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets to Hormel, documented that workers beat pigs with metal rods and sexually abused them with canes.

When one of our fieldworkers saw the headline about Sherlock in the Suffolk paper, she immediately went to work to find this guy a wonderful home. Click here to see how Sherlock's story ends!

Posted by Amy Elizabeth

Tropical Storm Ondoy caused severe flooding in many areas of metropolitan Manila last weekend. While PETA Asia-Pacfic's Manila office survived Ondoy intact and local staffers and their animal companions are safe, the storm caused massive damage.

As many of us remember from Hurricane Katrina, animals are often left in desperate situations after disasters, and PETA Asia-Pacific staffers, along with members of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), have been busy rescuing animals in distress.

Photo Credit: PAWS
The groups set out in a pickup truck to search local neighborhoods for animals stranded by the floods (some animals were trapped on rooftops after swimming there) and deliver food to guardians of hungry animals.

PAWS—with which PETA Asia-Pacific works closely year-round on issues such as spaying and neutering and stopping the introduction of greyhound racing to the Philippines—has also opened its shelter as an evacuation center for companion animals affected by the storm.

Tropical Storm Ondoy provides a sobering reminder that we all need to plan ahead to ensure the safety of our animal companions during natural disasters. You can learn more about preparing your companions for storms and other disasters here.

Posted by Jeff Mackey

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

theus50 / CC

One hot, humid afternoon in July, I was apartment hunting and checking out an old factory in Brooklyn that was undergoing renovation for loft rentals. As I entered the bathroom in one unlit, unfinished space, two pigeons flapped frantically in the darkness—apparently they were as startled by my presence as I was by theirs. The birds had found a way into the building but were unable to get out because the windows had been boarded up.

After tearing a board off a window, I managed to catch and release each of the frightened birds. Both of them paused on the scaffolding outside to allow their eyes to adjust to the bright sunshine and to take in fresh air before flying off into the distance. If I hadn't helped them out of that stifling, sawdust-filled space, they surely would have succumbed to the searing heat, as well as hunger and thirst.

Around that same time, a similar situation was unfolding in a small, rural town in Kansas. A distraught resident called PETA to report that countless birds were roasting to death in a dilapidated building that the city had recently boarded up. With summer temperatures climbing, we immediately contacted city officials and urged them to take action for the birds, but the person we spoke with told us that the city had bigger problems to deal with. Um, wrong answer.

We raced to place an action alert on our Web site, and we fired off a letter to city commissioners. Realizing that PETA and our caring members weren't going to back down, city officials acted. Less than 24 hours after our initial contact, the fire and police departments were sent to rescue the surviving birds. They provided them with water and tore holes in the roof to create escape routes and ventilation.

By not turning a blind eye to animal suffering, and by making a call to PETA, one "little bird" prompted the rescue of countless others from certain death.

Posted by Karin Bennett

If there is anything I learned from Saved by the Bell that could help save an animal, it's that oil can equal death for waterfowl.

This knowledge was recently put to quick use by some PETA Foundation staff members. They were walking by the San Francisco Bay when they noticed a seagull struggling to say afloat. The bird had become covered in grease while foraging for food at a nearby rendering plant.

The bird's feathers were matted by the grease, and his natural ability to float had been destroyed, so time was not on this guy's side. So PETA Foundation staffer Jaci Kassmeier didn't think twice before stripping to her skivvies and plunging into the freezing water to save him from drowning.

All cleaned up, the gull is now resting at a local wildlife rehabilitation facility where his other rescuer, PETA Foundation staffer Kelle Kacmarcik, is a volunteer.

Dogs and cats are not the only ones who need us to take action when we see them in danger. When wild animals' natural environments are turned into urban areas, the animals are forced to adapt—and it's often to their detriment. All too often, animals are hit by cars, are caught in traps, or fall victim to human carelessness.

Of course, knowing what to do when you encounter a wild animal who needs help is vital to ensuring that the animal receives necessary care and that you are kept out of harm's way. Please read our tips on what to do if you think a wild animal needs your help, and always take injured wild animals to an animal shelter, veterinarian, or wildlife rehabilitator who knows how to deal with their injuries. Never attempt to care for a wild animal yourself.

Posted by Shawna Flavell

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Well, be still my heart—kind-hearted firefighters have struck again!

The Gulfport Fire Department in Mississippi has received a PETA Compassionate Fire Department Award for its efforts in rescuing a dog who was trapped 16 feet underground. A crew working on a gas line heard Pepper's muffled barks and wasted no time in raising the alarm. The fire department and Gulfport Animal Control found the stuck pup in a small drainage pipe desperately holding her head only inches above the gushing water. Rescuers looped a catchpole over her head and lifted her to safety.

Ah, shucks—who needs Lassie when we've got firefighters? Share some love with our heroes by commenting below.

Posted by Jennifer Cierlitsky

For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts and need a reminder not to move there, the video accompanying a news report about three Hingham firefighters who braved icy waters to rescue a dog will serve as a cold dash of New England winter reality in the face.

The firefighters responded to a call for help from a woman whose rascally dog, Ollie, ran out onto ice-covered Hingham Harbor in hot pursuit of a seal. The seal apparently escaped unharmed, but Ollie plunged through the ice and was trapped in the frigid water. Enter our heroes, who valiantly swam and crawled through the slushy muck to reach Ollie and then painstakingly dragged him back to shore. It was obviously exhausting work, and one of the firefighters was taken to the hospital afterward as a precaution. A tired but grateful Ollie was taken to a veterinary hospital where he was treated and released.

We've honored Ollie's rescuers with a "Compassionate Firefighter Award," and we also threw in some PETA mugs and vegan hot cocoa mix to help them survive the rest of Massachusetts' merciless winter.

And let this be a cautionary tale for anyone who is tempted to allow a dog off lead anywhere near a frozen body of water. As The Boston Globe wisely points out, fuhgeddaboudit.

Posted by Alisa Mullins

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Marley & Me is coming out soon, and—even though it is decidedly mutt-free—we are nuts about this film's message.

OK, in case you don't know, Marley is based on the bestselling book by John Grogan and stars Owen Wilson as Grogan and Jennifer Aniston as his wife, Jenny. When they adopt Marley, an adorable but rambunctious (and growing) puppy, all heck breaks loose.

Now, anyone who has raised a puppy knows that it can be, uh, challenging (can I get an amen?), but Marley is in the big leagues—knocking over tables, shredding furniture, eating … well, I won't give too much away. But the cool—and right—thing is that John and Jenny deal with all the frustrations and stick to their commitment to Marley by providing lots of walks, playtime, and more.

And here's one of the best things about this: Grogan and the director as well as Fox 2000, the studio that is distributing the film, proved that Hollywood has a heart. More than a year ago, our L.A. office wrote to the folks at Fox 2000 asking if they'd tweak the story so that Marley was rescued from a rescue group or shelter instead of being bought from a breeder—and guess what? Yep, they did it! So, hopefully, anyone inspired to add a four-legged friend to the family will become part of the solution, instead of part of the problem, and will understand that life with a puppy comes with difficulties as well as delights. (These tips might help if you're living with a Marley of your own.)

So, let's see. Adorable stars of various species? Comic mishaps and tugged heartstrings? A story about love, understanding, and family bonding, just in time for the holidays, plus a great message about saving dogs and staying committed to them for their lives? I'm so there!

Posted by Jeff Mackey