PETA recently received a call about more than 20 rabbits who were crowded into a junk-filled outdoor enclosure at the back entrance of a barbecue joint in Oregon. The restaurant's excuse for the cruel captivity? For the kids to play with, they said. But there was nothing kid- or rabbit-friendly about the squalid setup or the rabbits' garbage-scrap diet.

What would your kids learn from this?

A concerned passerby reported the rabbits' precarious condition to PETA, and we acted quickly. After several visits from local officials, the restaurant agreed to surrender all the rabbits to a reputable local humane society that will find them loving indoor homes.

Animal abuse isn't always hidden, so keep your eyes peeled for animals in need and always speak up when you see cruelty.

Posted by Logan Scherer

It was 20 degrees in Michigan, and this small dog was tethered outdoors without any shelter to protect her from the plummeting temperatures. She was shivering, lonely, and suffering from a severe skin infection that was causing her fur—her only defense against the bitter cold—to fall out.

A compassionate passerby alerted PETA's Emergency Response Team that the dog appeared to be in danger. It was late, but we promptly notified a solid dedicated humane officer who with whom we'd worked with in the past. Despite being off duty at the time, he rushed to the scene and made a heartfelt plea to the dog's guardians, who, thankfully, agreed to relinquish her into his custody on the spot. The dog, later named Suzy, was whisked to a nearby animal shelter for immediate assessment and care. Shortly after the rescue, the wonderful humane officer posted pictures of Suzy and an account of the incident on his Facebook page. His post stated, "Strange thing just happened; I just got a call from PETA requesting I check on a dog …. Don't know how they got my # but I'm off to go check, after all I gave my word that I would."

Every winter, we're inundated with calls about dogs who are relegated to lonely back yards by people who refuse to allow them inside and make them a part of their family. These dogs are often forced to withstand freezing temperatures, often with nothing more than a plastic barrel or a lean-to as shelter from the ice, sleet, and snow. Not only are these dogs cold and miserable, they are susceptible to hypothermia, frostbite, and even death. Although winter is especially harsh, chaining a dog is never a safe or acceptable option. Dogs are social pack animals who want and deserve companionship. If you ever spot a dog in need, please do everything you can to help, including alerting local officials to your concerns. Your voice can make a difference!

Posted by Logan Scherer

Ace—a kind, shy pit bull—was chained outside 24/7. The area where he lived was worn, there was not a single blade of grass within sniffing distance, and he was living in a plastic barrel that offered minimal shelter from the elements. After a bloody encounter with another dog, Ace was left with swollen and infected genitals, and his neglectful "owner" let the painful sores go untreated for more than a month.

A concerned complainant first reported Ace's plight to local law-enforcement officials, who refused to help. When we received the initial call about Ace, we got a similar and frustrating run-around from officials, who assured us that the dog was "fine."

By the following morning, our persistent efforts to secure help for Ace resulted in getting a qualified animal control officer dispatched to Ace's Alabama home. Once the officer arrived on the scene, it was obvious that Ace was not "fine," and he was immediately seized. The untreated infection had taken its toll on Ace, and when he arrived at the local animal shelter, he was finally given a humane release from his prolonged suffering.

In addition to suffering through sweltering heat and blistering cold, dogs like Ace, who are forced to spend their lives at the end of a lonely chain, are susceptible to violent encounters with other animals. Chained dogs often become fearful of intruders and overly protective of their tiny patches of ground. This can encourage unnaturally aggressive behavior that often has tragic results for the animals and people who go near them. If you know of or see an injured or neglected chained dog, please take action.

Posted by Logan Scherer

Frail, undernourished, and lonely, Little Bit was a walking skeleton. She was confined to an electric kennel and rarely had access to food or water, and her only "shelter" was a tipped-over plastic table.

Shocked by the dismal sight of Little Bit's solitary confinement, an area resident contacted the police, but the officers claimed that they saw nothing wrong with the pitiful and dangerous backyard setup or the obviously malnourished dog. Our complainant continued to push local agencies in the hope that someone would come to Little Bit's rescue but hit wall after wall.

It took just a single day after the resident contacted PETA for Little Bit to find freedom from her life sentence—we were able to get a PETA fieldworker out to this property and convince Little Bit's neglectful owner—who allegedly worked for local law-enforcement—to relinquish her into our custody.

Electric fences like the one in which Little Bit was confined, and so-called "invisible fences," can cause physical pain and potentially serious injuries as well as incite patterns of fear and aggression in dogs. No dog should have to live in fear of getting shocked. If you know of someone using electronic fences or shock collars to confine or silence their dog(s), educate them about the cruelty associated with these devices. And always speak up if you witness animal abuse.

Posted by Logan Scherer

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when it comes to the picture of these horses, I'm still at a loss—this photo is worth a thousand chills:

When I was a child, I had a recurring nightmare that I was covered head-to-toe with needles that paralyzed me. I had no way of taking them out; I was helpless. But of course, I'd wake up, and it would all be over—it was only a twisted creation of my subconscious.

For the horses in the photo, however, my haunting nightmare was their reality. Covered in thick clusters of hard, prickly burrs, the horses endured constant discomfort, yet their neglectful owner continued to let the burrs accumulate in the horses' manes and tails for months.

After noticing the matted mess these horses had become, a concerned neighbor contacted PETA. We immediately got in touch with animal control, which had initially failed to respond to these concerns when our complainant first called for help. However, the agency was inspired by PETA caseworkers to force the owner to groom the horses immediately, and better yet, the horses were moved from the burr-infested property into a safer environment.

It is crucial that guardians have a comprehensive understanding of the care required to provide horses with a happy, healthy existence. Burrs, pebbles, and debris often cause debilitating bruises or thrush, a painful bacterial infection, which is why horses must be routinely cleaned and checked for markings. If you see or know of any animal who is not receiving proper care, please report it to your local law enforcement—the animal's life may depend on your speaking up.

Posted by Logan Scherer

Underfed and tied to a shed 24/7, Rocky wasn't really living—just existing. Rocky was only a puppy, yet his owner never let him inside the home and allegedly beat him in an effort to try to turn him into a better "guard dog". After witnessing the abuse that Rocky was forced to endure, a concerned area resident set to work trying to find help for the adorable and resilient dog.

After placing phone call after phone call to various agencies and animal shelters in the area to no avail, the resident finally turned to PETA. We immediately coordinated with folks at the local SCPA, who persisted in Rocky's behalf and eventually convinced his owner to surrender him into the shelter's care.

Now, a few weeks later, we are delighted to see this picture of a blissful, thriving, recently adopted Rocky:

The story of the dog who is left outside to languish is one that our cruelty caseworkers hear all too often. Dogs are highly social and loyal companions. They crave lots of love, attention, and exercise, and they always want to be around their human family. Staking them out in lonely yards as cheap "alarm systems" is nothing short of a cruel betrayal of an animal's unlimited love and devotion to his or her guardian—it is simply not the way things are meant to be.

If you know people who aren't doing right by their dog, please talk to them and educate them about the animal's many needs. Offer to walk their dog. Bring toys! Show them how to do things right. And please, never let mistreated animals endure abuse or neglect. Always speak up and file a report with local law enforcement officials. Without you, these animals would have no voice.

Posted by Logan Scherer

Recently, a good Samaritan from a rural Florida community saw an emaciated horse and became determined to find help for the animal. After his calls to local authorities failed to rouse a response (perhaps because the horse's owner allegedly has political connections), he issued a plea for help on Facebook, posting a photograph of the starving horse and urging his friends to pass the information along, hopeful that someone would know how to help rescue the animal.

The photo of the emaciated horse makes my skin crawl, but I can't help comparing his jutting bones to the ones shown in this diagram. He really appears to be a living skeleton.

The man's post went up, and PETA's phones started ringing with calls alerting our Cruelty Investigations Department to this urgent situation. We didn't waste a second in contacting local law enforcement, and within hours the sheriff's department seized the horse from the property. The horse was rushed to a veterinarian for evaluation and is now awaiting adoption.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can offer more than high school reunion pics. and "pokes"—as this incident shows, they can also save lives. PETA now has over 300,000 Facebook friends. May we count you as one, too?

Posted by Karin Bennett

A tree grows in Brooklyn … actually, many of them do. And from one of those trees, a pigeon dangled upside down from a piece of string that was caught around her leg and tangled on a tree branch two stories above a busy sidewalk, beside a busy street.

When a caring Brooklynite contacted PETA, the bird had already hung from that tree for days without food or water, surely full of panic and fear.

But luckily there are people—such as the Brooklynite who contacted us—who care enough to take action.

Local animal control agents lacked the equipment necessary to rescue the pigeon, but they referred our cruelty caseworker to the local fire department, which dispatched a truck minutes after PETA's call came in. Firefighters drove by to survey the situation and returned in a truck with a tall ladder, which they climbed to reach the bird.

The caller was on-site, and when firefighters handed her the pigeon—whose wounds were infested with maggots—she rushed the bird to a local veterinarian. Immediately realizing that the pigeon's back was broken, the vet was able to quickly release her from her suffering.

The anguish that pigeon endured during those days is almost incomprehensible. Hanging upside down with a broken back and suffering from extreme starvation and dehydration as maggots infested her open wounds, she must have been in severe pain. Had those caring persons—the caller, the cruelty caseworker, firefighters, and the vet—not stepped in to take action, who knows how long her suffering would have continued?

We've said it before, but it bears repeating: Please always be a person who helps an animal in need. You might be the first to take action, but if you reach out to others, you'll likely find people who care as much as you do.

Posted by Karin Bennett

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We recently received a report of a 65-year-old hoarder in Maine, who—despite having been convicted of cruelty to animals in 2005 and barred from owning any animals for the rest of her life—was apparently once again stockpiling a menagerie of animals.

A concerned neighbor reached out to PETA after several high-ranking officials failed to act on his complaints, deeming the situation a parole violation only. With a little work, we were eventually able to locate a district attorney who was willing to prosecute, provided that we could obtain the necessary evidence.

We then found a sympathetic state trooper who agreed to visit the woman's property. According to his account, when he arrived he got the shock of a lifetime. After he told the woman that he had a warrant for her arrest (for an unrelated matter), she reportedly attacked him with a stun gun to his head and neck. When she refused to drop the weapon, he used pepper spray to subdue her, handcuffed her, and called for backup.

Animal control agents arrived to find more than 40 animals on her property, including dogs, cats, parrots, chickens, ducks, alpacas, a donkey, and a pot-bellied pig. Almost all the animals were in cages. The animals were sent to shelters around the state, and the hoarder is now being held awaiting bail.

Folks, you might know of someone in your neighborhood whose yard is teeming with stray cats or someone who has a multitude of neglected dogs barking nonstop in his or her backyard. Please know that there's a very strong possibility that this person is a hoarder—a mentally ill person with a compulsion to acquire "things" they can't bring themselves to discard. Hoarders don't try to find loving homes for their animals—in fact, they usually resist any effort to do so. In this case, more than 40 animals might have died from neglect and disease had it not been for police intervention!

A person who hoards animals doesn't love animals any more than a hoarder who fills his or her house with garbage loves trash. The big difference, of course, is that empty pizza boxes and beer bottles don't suffer and die from neglect—but animals do.

Posted by Karin Bennett

Stimpy was wasting away. Whether he had a medical condition or simply couldn't compete for food against the other, stronger dog on the property is not clear. But he was obviously suffering and slowly dying.

After weeks of watching Stimpy's condition deteriorate while waiting for local authorities to intervene, a concerned citizen called PETA and asked us to step in. Our cruelty caseworkers leaped into action and quickly convinced animal control officers to visit the property. Once the officers arrived, they acknowledged that Stimpy's situation was desperate and convinced Stimpy's guardian to surrender custody of him.

Stimpy is just one example of the countless "backyard dogs" suffering at the hands of neglectful guardians. While these people may not intentionally abuse animals, the end result is the same: misery, anguish, and often death.

Animals left outside are put at risk by a range of hazards—including parasites, diseases, and weather extremes as well as "bunchers" (people who steal animals and sell them to laboratories) and other cruel people.

Our cruelty caseworkers constantly receive calls about "backyard dogs" like Stimpy, and regardless of whether the call is from New York City or Small Town, Arkansas, the stories are almost always the same. We know that abuse and neglect can happen anywhere, at anytime, and dogs like Stimpy rely on people like you to be on the look out for their suffering. So regardless of whether you live in a metropolis or in the middle of a cornfield—please keep your eyes and ears peeled for mistreated animals and speak up whenever you suspect foul play.

Posted by Jeff Mackey