PETA Pleads with Farage to Stop Using Bulldogs in Campaign Materials  

PETA Pleads with Farage to Stop Using Bulldogs in Campaign Materials  

London – Following reports that Nigel Farage got his first “tattoo” – a British bulldog – as an April Fool’s joke, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has sent the Reform UK leader an urgent letter pleading with him to stop using bulldog imagery in all campaign messaging.

In the letter (available here), PETA’s Founder, Ingrid Newkirk, explains that flat-faced breeds are susceptible to severe health problems, including brachycephalic syndrome, because of their purposely flattened, pushed-in snouts and that they suffer from a plethora of serious health issues as a result of his deformity. A bulldog’s distorted and restricted airways are “not simply uncomfortable – one veterinary surgeon likened it to “trying to breathe through a really narrow straw” – it is sometimes fatal, resulting in heart failure, suffocation or heat stroke,” writes Newkirk. “Will you please decide not to use images of bulldogs in any future campaign messaging so we can move on from that image as defining Britishness when I hope it certainly does not.”

Bulldogs are Breathing Impaired Breeds (BIB), are bred for a particular look, resulting in drastically shortened airways that cause an array of painful and distressing symptoms – including laboured breathing, snorting, gagging, and collapsing – and make dogs more susceptible to vomiting, exercise intolerance, heatstroke, and premature death.

After hearing from PETA and its international affiliates, a growing list of ad and marketing agencies, organisations, retailers, and other businesses are taking responsibility for the impact that marketing has on consumers and refusing to use images of certain BIBs in publications and ads. This conscientious decision can help reduce the demand for dogs with features that cause them to suffer.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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