High-profile supporters join us to save millions of dogs from rabies

World Animal Protection has marked a major milestone in giving one million rabies vaccinations to dogs around the world to protect their lives and safeguard communities.

We have now joined forces with actors, authors and singers such as Leona Lewis, Jodi Picoult, Natalie Imbruglia, and Kristin Bauer to celebrate the milestone and campaign to vaccinate the next million.

“Forrest is very quick to give love. I absolutely adore his playful attitude. He gives high fives and is extremely smart, very loyal and always by my side. There’s so much tenderness in his eyes! He is everything to me and I am extremely fortunate to have him in my life,” Leona said.

Each and every dog around the world deserves love and protection but many face abuse, disease, starvation and death because they are homeless. Many are abandoned by owners who no longer care or pay for them. We are leading the way to end the unnecessary deaths of millions of dogs, every year, caused by the fear of rabies or dog bites.

Related: Help us provide humane alternatives to the mass killing of dogs in Sierra Leone

This forgotten disease is killing five times as many people as Ebola, and is a disease we are taking for granted.

Every day, thousands of dogs are violently killed because of rabies. Dragged through streets, electrocuted, poisoned or gassed – culling is a painful death. We are grateful to Leona, Jodi, Natalie, and Kristin for helping us shine a light on how dog lovers in any country can work together to protect dogs in another.

"Dogs love us unconditionally - something humans haven't mastered yet," Kristin said.

There are 700 million dogs in the world today. Many of them are unwanted, unhealthy and unvaccinated.  Fear of bites and rabies means that millions are killed every year.

It is a tragic reality that thousands of people around the world continue to die from rabies each year, even though it’s almost 100% preventable. Innocent dogs also suffer as a result.

We're working around the globe to end the cruel culling of dogs in the name of rabies. We've worked with governments in Asia and Africa to implement vaccination programs since 2011 and show that this approach works. There are no human rabies cases reported in pilot sites in China since we worked there in 2012 and in Zanzibar since 2013 - our results speak for themselves.

“Forrest is very quick to give love. I absolutely adore his playful attitude. He gives high fives and is extremely smart, very loyal and always by my side. There’s so much tenderness in his eyes! He is everything to me and I am extremely fortunate to have him in my life,