Free PETA App Barks Back at ‘Dog Wars,’ Animal Cruelty
Animal rights organization PETA has made a free, eponymous iPhone app in response to controversial Android app Dog Wars, a mobile game featuring virtual dogs fighting one another.
Letting you train and battle simulated pit bulls, Dog Wars, since renamed KG Dogfighting and being sold on the Android Market for $2.99, has sparked outrage amongst animal rights groups, which believe it promotes animal cruelty.
In contrast, the PETA app encourages user activism, providing viewers with “action alerts” highlighting current PETA campaign efforts as well as information regarding alleged instances of animal abuse. The app also offers concerned parties the option to share details surrounding these incidents on Facebook or Twitter, or email letters of protest to corporate executives, politicians and community leaders. Donations can be submitted via the program, as well, with points, badges and awards assigned for taking action.
“Dog Wars promotes felony cruelty to animals, plain and simple,” said PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in a press release. “PETA’s new app allows iPhone users to employ consumer pressure to prevent dogs from being torn to shreds in dogfights and to nip other violent acts of abuse against animals in the bud.”
Appropriately, one of the first such initiatives PETA is promoting is for users to write in to Google, asking it to remove KG Dogfighting from the Android Market.