**FURRY FRIENDS**

As I was searching for a new topic to discuss, I decided to google “PR for animals,” and I found this website, which is dedicated to the same thing as me: public relations for our furry friends - animals. I immediatley had an appreciation for this fellow lover of animals and PR, but started losing it as I read through their webpage. I happend upon one of the “tips” pages and found myself annoyed after reading it because I just wasted a few minutes of my life. I was interested in “How to Navigate Your Local Newspaper,” thinking that it would be helpful for my developing skills, but it was just common sense.

When I started reading the tips section about “How to Handle a PR Crisis,” I was thinking the same thing. Then, suddenly, it hit me: These articles aren’t common sense, they’re just targeted toward a less PR-educated group, like to a non-profit group that has no PR department. My appreciation was restored. This is a great resource, just not particularly for me!

The website originated, and now includes, a blog called PR for Animals. Check it out!

I happend upon a webpage for a woman by the name of Dee Dunheim. She focuses on public relations for animals, mainly by publicizing animal rights. After reading about her work, I instantly made a mental connection to PETA. In reality, PETA is the father (or mother) of animal public relations. They do the most publicity for their cause - animals - and have the most strategic tactics. I guess all animal rights groups are like public relations firms for animals. Other groups are the ASPCA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Humane Society of the United States. A more extensive list is on wikipedia.

Dunheim has lobbied legislative bodies for the creation and enforcement of protective laws to safeguard animals, served as full-time Public Relations Director for a national animal protection society, created publicity opportunities for pet therapy programs with senior housing facilities, presented publicity workshops and seminars to animal protection societies and humane organizations, appeared as a guest on local television and radio talk shows and more. All of these activities serve as tactics for a general public relations plan of publicizing animal rights.

When comparing to my blog post about the pitbull pr, it’s intersting to see what a wide variety of pr is possible for animals. From unofficial stunts like the pitbull puppies, to organized plans like what PETA does, animals actually get a lot more pr than it seems, which I see as an AMAZING thing.

In J452 we registered for Twitter last week. I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept and I think that I finally figured out why. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I wasn’t involved in any other social networking sites, particularly facebook, then I would probably love Twitter. However, because I already have facebook, all I see is one small part of facebook - the facebook status. So why would I spend my time doing an extra “status update” for a social network site that I don’t even have many friends on? I mean, it’s not that I hate Twitter, I just see it as kind of pointless. Sorry Tiffany!

Reading this article made me begin to think about different levels of PR. Being in school, I have been focusing most of my thoughts on “official” PR, like writing news releases and working for a PR firm. This article, however, made me begin to think about the PR that we, as people, do every day to promote ourselves, our interests, our friends and others. This man didn’t write a news release and send it off to the local newspaper about why pitbulls aren’t as bad as their reputation makes them seem. No, he just used a strategic tactic to influence the behavior and beliefs of his neighbors. This man probably didn’t even think of his move as a PR tactic, but his neighbor saw it in this way.

Thinking about this man’s tactic makes me wonder what kind of PR tactics I’ve used in MY life, without realizing that they are PR tactics. Olga once had a revelation that going to the student rec center to work out is like a self-promoting PR tactic because you are, partially, going there to be seen and give yourself a healthy reputation. I agree with Ms.Walsh about this. Does anyone have any other ideas of “unofficial” PR tactics that people do?

Hi, this is my first post! Well, I’m studying PR at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. I LOVE animals, so I’m thinking that I’m going to be talking about PR that deals with animals, but I’m still figuring out this whole blog thing, so work with me on my indecisiveness at this piont, please!!

In another class I’m taking, J453 - Public Relations Planning and Problems, we read chapter 1 as homework last night. In it, the author, Tom Hagley, says that similar to a doctor working with medicine, a PR professional works with influencing behavior. This relates to my topic of animals in PR by considering how PR is used to influence peoples behavior with animal treatment. I plan on looking at examples of this in future posts!

Last term, in my Writing for PR class, we took a look at the PR that happend around the Christmas Day attack. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the situation, on Christmas Day this past year, Tatiana, a tiger from the San Francisco Zoo, escaped it’s cage, killed a 17-year-old boy and injured his two other friends. The news releases about the situation were all over the place! It seemed like the facts were changing every day and with every report on the situation. Eventually, the PR specialist that the zoo brought in started saying that the kids may have been drinking, smoking pot or taunting the tiger, but after that, it was admitted by zoo that the cage barrier wasn’t as high as regulations said it should be. This is exactly how NOT to handle a crisis situation. Not only did they withold information, they tried placing blame instead of accepting it! This goes against everything I’ve learned thus far in the SOJC about crisis management.