The first activist thing I did in DC when I moved there was to do what I always did when

I got to a new town. I'd go to the dog pound.

Alex Patekka was a student at George Washington University and he came in one day and offered

to volunteer.

The head of the dog pound, her name was Ingrid Newcork.

He was also a vegan and I was not. I was a vegetarian and he teased me about putting milk

in my tea. I had a cup of tea every morning and I put condensed milk in it and he said,

do you feel? And I said, of course I don't. We haven't eaten, we've eaten in my house since

I was seven. And he said, but there's a little bit of

the feel in every toss of milk. I looked at him as if he was crazy and he explained. He said,

do you think there are retirement homes for cows? Well, I guess not. He said, why do you

think there's a feel industry? It's because you have to do something with the calves when

you take them away from the mother so that you can steal the milk that nature intended

for them and sell it.

Uh oh, Pant have milk in the tea then, can I?

She was ten years older than me so she was more savvy than me. I was still twenty years

older at the time and we got along so well, we started dating. We became boyfriend and

girlfriend full on for five years. We agreed on everything.

Why it was important not to buy things tested on animals, not to wear leather shoes,

those kinds of things, just all the critical stuff. And that's why we started PETA.

We were going to call it justice for non-humans and we ended up calling it people for the

ethical treatment of animals.

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