Students Protest "Call of Duty" Promotion of Cruelty March 24, 2009

Nobody likes video games more than us at peta2. So as you can imagine, we—along with gamers worldwide—were thrilled to see the release of the latest installment in the Call of Duty series last winter.

That is, until we actually sat down to play the game, which requires players to shoot dogs, and even offers the opportunity to unlock the "reward" of releasing a pack of attack dogs on enemies. I don't know about you, but in a world that already has so much cruelty to dogs and other animals, this is not exactly the way I'd prefer to spend my evenings.

Thankfully, we aren't alone. As the Lowell Sun is reporting, students at the Academy of Notre Dame high school are so outraged by the promotion of cruelty to animals in the game that they launched a petition to the Call of Duty publishers, Activision, which already has more than 100 signatures on it.

When asked why she wanted to make this issue public, the student animal rights group president, Breanna, told the paper (via GamePolitics.com):

"Killing dogs as a form of entertainment ... over and over again. That's one of the objects of the game," says Lucci, 19, a senior at NDA. "Parents need to know what they are buying their kids. Killing animals should not be a form of entertainment."

...

"My little 12-pound Pomeranian, Winnie the Pooh, is sitting next to [Lucci's brother as he plays the game], and I'm thinking, 'This looks horrible!'" Lucci says.

Lucci then adds, "My brother is a sweetheart. He won't be killing dogs after playing. But some people might."

—Ryan!

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