PETA India to 'Barbecue Dog' on International Meatless Day

The animal rights organisation - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) - urges people to turn vegan and often comes up with new campaigns and ideas to raise awareness.

Hoping to spread public awareness and evoke compassion for animals, PETA India supporters on Tuesday announced that ahead of International Meatless Day on 25 November, they will be 'barbecuing' a dog on a grill in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh state.

Speaking to Sputnik, PETA spokesperson Hiraj Laljani clarified it will be a "dog prop" and not a real animal.

"We have deliberately chosen the dog figure because they are a social animal and generally humans feel close to them," he said. "Every organism, be it chickens, goats, and fish, are no different from dogs, they all have emotions and feelings."

Throughout this campaign, people are being urged to turn vegan, Laljani said.

"PETA India is encouraging people who find the thought of eating a dog distasteful to keep all animals off their plates," PETA India Senior Campaigns Coordinator Radhika Suryavanshi said in a statement.

"The visual, using a dog prop, will send out the message that all animals are made of flesh, blood, and bone and that everybody has the same capacity to feel pain and a variety of emotions."

"Eating meat means eating the corpses of sentient beings who valued their own lives just as dogs do and do not want to die," the communique further added.

Every year, many animals -- chickens (19 billion), cows (1.5 billion), sheep (1 billion), and pigs (1 billion) -- are killed for human consumption, according to The Economist.