Animal Welfare Activism
Day's interest in animal welfare and related issues apparently dates to her teen years. While recovering from an automobile accident, she took her dog Tiny for a walk without a leash. Tiny ran into the street and was killed by a passing car. Day later confessed guilt and loneliness about Tiny's untimely death. In 1971, she co-founded Actors and Others for Animals and appeared in a series of newspaper advertisements denouncing the wearing of fur, alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Angie Dickinson, and Jayne Meadows. Day's friend, Cleveland Amory, wrote about these events in Man Kind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife (1974).
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Day promoted the annual Spay Day USA, and on a number of occasions, actively lobbied the United States Congress in support of legislation designed to safeguard animal rights. She also founded The Doris Day Animal League, which merged into The Humane Society of the United States in 2006. Staff members of the Doris Day League took positions within The HSUS, and Day recorded public service announcements for the organization. The HSUS now manages Spay Day USA, the one-day spay/neuter event she originated.
A facility to help abused and neglected horses opened in 2011 and bears her name: the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center, located in Murchison, Texas, on the grounds of an animal sanctuary started by her late friend, author Cleveland Amory. Day contributed $250,000 toward the founding of the center.
Read more about this topic: Doris Day
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or welfare:
“To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“I have great faith in ‘ordinary parents.’ Who has a child’s welfare more at heart than his ordinary parent? It’s been my experience that when parents are given the skills to be more helpful, not only are they able to use these skills, but they infuse them with a warmth and a style that is uniquely their own.”
—Haim Ginott (20th century)