Facebook"Chill," PETA, says Sarah Palin in response to criticism over a photo of her 6-year-old son, Trig, standing on top of the family dog and using the pet as a stepping stone.
The picture was posted on her Facebook page on New Year's Day. The Republican figure and former vice presidential candidate had joked that her son had found her and "a lazy dog blocking his way" while trying to help wash dishes.
Her post triggered mostly negative responses, including more than 24,000 on her own page, as well as from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organization and other animal rights groups and supporters. Many accused of her of animal cruelty.
On Saturday, Palin posted a 335-word rant, worded as a letter to PETA, who had called her post inappropriate.
"Dear PETA, Chill. At least Trig didn't eat the dog," she wrote.
PETA said in a statement on Saturday, in response to her second post, "Palin's Facebook response shows us that she knows PETA about as well as she knows geography."
In her rant, Palin also pointed the finger at talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who PETA had named Woman of the Year in 2009.
"Hey, by the way, remember your 'Woman of the Year,' Ellen DeGeneres?" Palin wrote. "Did you get all wee-wee'd up when she posted this sweet picture? Hypocritical, much?"
On July 1, 2014, the official Facebook page of The Ellen DeGeneres Show posted a photo of a little girl standing on a dog. Her face is not shown and it is unclear who took the pic, which also received a slew of negative responses.
The dog in Palin's photo, who appears to be a black Labrador, is her family pet Jill Hadassah, according to another pic she posted. She says the pooch was adopted in August 2014.
In her letter, Palin also mentioned President Barack Obama.
"Did you go as crazy when your heroic Man-of-Your-Lifetime, Barack Obama, revealed he actually enjoyed eating dead dog meat?" she wrote.
In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama had written that wrote he has "was introduced to dog meat," which he described as "tough," when he lived in Indonesia as a child. He did not say whether or not he enjoyed eating it.
Palin also accused PETA of being "anti-beef screamers blogging hate from your comfy leather office chairs" who support "celebrity idols" who "sport fur and crocodile purses" and eat caviar, or as she calls it, "poor dead smelly roe" she "used to strip from our Bristol Bay-caught fish," and, simply, "discarded funky eggs."
"Our pets, including Trig's best buddy Jill Hadassah, are loved, spoiled and cared for more than some people care for their fellow man whose politics may not mesh with nonsensical liberally failed ways or don't fit your flighty standards," she wrote. "Jill is a precious part of our world. So is Trig."
PETA said in its counter-response, "We're a vegan organization, so we sit on pleather couches, wear stylish vegan kicks, and consider fish friends, not food."
"We have no reason to believe that the Palin companion animals aren't ordinarily pampered, and we wish the entire family a peaceful and humane 2015," the group added.