NEWSBYSTEPHANIE FELDSTEIN

This is a guest post from Marla Tauscher, an animal law attorney in California who started a campaign on Change.org asking Governor Jerry Brown not to repeal the state's protections for shelter animals. 

In 1998, California enacted a comprehensive body of law, called the Hayden Law, to protect shelter animals and improve conditions for them. Among its core provisions are the extension of the mandatory holding period for animals, veterinary treatment for sick or injured animals, record-keeping for all animals, implementation of holding periods for pets other than dogs and cats, and maintenance of lost and found lists.

The Hayden Law was groundbreaking, and since its enactment, many other states have used it as a model for their own shelter laws. But now it's under attack.

If you're a football fan, you're gearing up to root for the Giants or Patriots this weekend. But if you're one of the 119,000 people who have signed GREY2K USA's petition on Change.org, then you're rooting for the greyhounds. Not the ones that will be "racing" against Mr. Quiggly, the French bulldog in the Skechers commercial, but the ones behind-the-scenes of the ad. The ones who suffer in cramped cages at the track and who face serious injury during races where the ad was filmed .

From Boston to Los Angeles, Skechers stores were confronted this past weekend by dog lovers asking consumers to boycott the company unless it drops its Super Bowl ad filmed at the notorious Tucson Greyhound Park. The controversy has dominated the pre-game advertising buzz.

Now, with only 5 days left, GREY2K USA is asking its supporters to keep up the momentum. From GREY2K USA, here are 5 things you can do:

This is a guest post by Karen Van Atta Luce, petition creator and volunteer with the Wild Burro Protection League.

Not too long ago, burros were considered important heritage animals. These gentle animals literally built the Southwest, hauling supplies and serving as loyal companions. They embody the cultural crossroads of Native Americans, Mexicans and settlers in the region.

For hundreds of years, wild burros have been part of the ecosystem, supporting other wildlife by enriching the desert in places like Big Bend Ranch State Park.

If you go even further back in time, the bible says that Mary rode a burro into Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, and Jesus rode a burro into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

This is a guest blog post written by Pam Sordyl, founder of Puppy Mill Awareness Meetup of Southeast Michigan, a volunteer group working to end the mass production of dogs in puppy mills.

While a puppy under the tree might seem festive this time of year, the industry that stocks stores like Petland is full of Scrooges.

Pet store puppies are mass-produced by commercial breeders (a.k.a. "puppy mills") who keep hundreds of dogs in cramped, unsanitary conditions, breeding the females over and over. Due to poor veterinary care and little to no socialization, that pet store puppy with the bow around its neck likely has a bunch of health and behavioral problems to unwrap after the holidays.

This cruelty isn't what people want for pets. More than 130,000 people have signed the petition on Change.org asking Petland — the largest puppy-selling pet store chain in the U.S. — to stop supporting puppy mills and choose to offer pet adoptions instead.

More than 1,000 people have joined a campaign on Change.org calling on the University of Delaware, whose mascot is the blue hen, to stop supporting the inhumane treatment of egg-laying hens by switching to cage-free eggs.

Chelsea McFadden, a University of Delaware student, launched the campaign on Change.org after learning that Harvard University switched to 100 percent cage-free eggs in response to another campaign on Change.org, which gained more than 7,000 supporters. University of Delaware is the only large university in the Philadelphia-Baltimore corridor that has not gone cage-free.

“The University of Delaware has already made significant strides in supporting more responsible methods of meeting its needs — such as introducing hybrid buses, instituting single-stream recycling throughout the campus, starting a composting program, and more. Switching from battery-cage eggs to cage-free is another step the University should take on its current path,” said McFadden. “Cage-free eggs are more humane, more environmentally sustainable, and a healthier option for UD students — all things that should be a top priority for the state of Delaware's largest institution of higher-education.”

This week, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Criminal Justice Committee will start hearing testimony on a bill that would change the status of pit bulls in the state and end discrimination against the dogs. Ohio is the only state in the U.S. that singles out a breed of dog at the state level.

More than 10,000 people have joined the campaign on Change.org, led by Ohio Coalition of Dog Advocates president Jean Keating, to pass H.B. 14, which would remove pit bulls from the state’s definition of vicious dogs. The campaign has also gained the attention of actor Ian Somerhalder of Lost and The Vampire Diaries, who recently announced his support for H.B. 14.

“The Ohio Coalition of Dog Advocates, along with Ian Somerhalder, is thrilled that the Ohio Senate is ready to hear testimony from dog lovers across the state in support of House Bill 14,” said Keating, who launched the campaign. “Over 10,000 people have already signed our petition on Change.org, and people will keep calling on their Senators asking them to improve safety in their community and end breed discrimination by voting yes on HB 14.”

This is a guest blog post written by Mary Haight, who owns the Dancing Dog Blog and launched the campaign on Change.org calling on Petland USA to stop selling pets.

Stocking more than 150 stores across the US with puppies of all breeds is a model responsible for causing pain, suffering and death. Breeding females are locked in cages until they can no longer breed, around 5 years, and are then killed. Even if a change from the top in a franchise-structured company affects only corporate stores, the intent to do no harm is a clarion call that every company should want to take up, especially one that deals directly with living things.

Sadly, Petland is not interested.

After more than 45,000 people joined my campaign on Change.org calling on Petland USA to stop supporting puppy mills, I sent questions to the company’s headquarters, and the answers received do not recognize the pain and suffering factory farming of family pets inflicts.

Sometimes pictures can be more effective than words. Since they have the power to help stop this, remind Petland USA what breeder puppy mill dogs look like.  Estimates report there are more than a million of them trapped in hopeless lives.

We need your help THIS WEEKEND with this simple action. It should only take 10 minutes of your time:

Actress Kristin Bauer, who plays  the vampire Pam on HBO's True Blood, has launched a campaign on Change.org with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect captive chimpanzees.

There may be fewer than 3,200 tigers left in the wild in the entire world, but you might be surprised at how easy it is to own one of the big cats in Ohio. Or eighteen of them.

Last week, when Terry Thompson of Zanesville, Ohio opened the cages of his 18 tigers — along with more than a dozen lions, several wolves, bears and primates — before killing himself, it led to a tragic end for the animals, with 49 shot and killed by local law enforcement and the few survivors (including the leopard pictured here) sent to the Columbus Zoo, where they face a life of captivity.

It's easy to blame local law enforcement for the deaths of these animals, but their tragic story started long before the day they were let loose. It started with some of the weakest regulations in the country that make it perfectly legal own this kind of menagerie. That's why Liz Dumler, an Ohio native and Ohio University student, started a campaign on Change.org calling on Governor John Kasich to immediately ban the sale, ownership and harboring of exotic animals.

In just a few days, more than 90,000 people have joined Liz's campaign. On Friday, Gov. Kasich held a much-anticipated press conference on Friday to sign an executive order on exotic animals.