Last Person to Withstand Living Chained to Doghouse Wins New Car; Online Voting for People's Choice Award Underway

Altoona, PA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 06/26/2006 --Dogs Deserve Better, a nonprofit working to bring dogs into the home and family, has finalized plans and signed its contestants for a very unique reality-tv style contest: 14 people will live chained to doghouses for a period of up to two weeks in order to win the prize of a NEW Chevy Aveo. The contest will begin at 12:00 noon July 1, and go as long as 12:00 noon, July 15. It is being held at Leidy Park in Mundys Corner, Pennsylvania approximately 1 hour east of Pittsburgh.

Tammy S. Grimes, founder of Dogs Deserve Better, states, “Meet the brave men and women who have signed on as contestants in the first-ever game where humans will live as chained dogs. They will compete to survive the boredom of living chained . . . They will be allowed no books, TV, radio, smoking, or even visitors, except for members of the press. For only 1/2 hour each day they may see family members or call home, reach out for some semblance of normality. They will be allowed the bare minimum in hygiene, no showers or baths, but only cleanliness routines undertaken within the confines of four tiny port-a-john walls. They will be stripped of all the comforts we take so much for granted on a daily basis. In their place, they receive only a chain, a collar, water, food, doghouse, sleeping bag, and shade.

They will record their feelings once a day in a journal, helping to light a path for the dogs to travel toward freedom. They may cry, knowing the pain and suffering chained dogs endure, day in, day out—often for life. One of them will walk away with a new car...but more importantly, none of them will walk away unchanged. The knowledge they now bear may make it virtually impossible to look at a chained dog without knowing how it feels to be that dog."

Contestants from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and New York will converge on the little town of Mundys Corner, PA to begin a contest like no other. Actor Adrian Zmed, formerly Officer Romano on TJ Hooker, will attend to help kick off the event from 12:00 noon to 2:30 p.m. July 1st, with speakers and bands scheduled throughout the day. Musician Cheryl Hill travels with her band from Tennessee to headline opening night at 8:00 p.m.

Grimes will once again be joined by other animal advocates in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana who will live chained for brief periods of time—independently of the contest—to bring awareness for chained dogs. She will remain chained for 3 days, from July 1st through July 4th, and will gain her freedom on the 4th of July, symbolic of her quest to gain freedom for America’s chained dogs.

This year Grimes chains herself in memory of Ebb, a dog from Mahaffey, Pennsylvania. Dogs Deserve Better worked with concerned citizens for four years to try to free him from his chains, but they were never successful. Ebb suffered the loss of his eyesight, his hearing, and ultimately the last vestiges of hope before his death, having spent his entire life chained outside, sad and alone.

See the website at www.dogsdeservebetter.org for a complete listing of locations and schedules for all Chain Off 2006 events.

Dogs Deserve Better is a 501c3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Tipton, Pennsylvania, is the 2003 First Place Winner of the ASPCA Pet Protector Award, and currently has 141 area reps in 37 states as well as in Canada and Australia.