Trump administration cuts McGruff the Crime Dog's fentanyl campaign

Kristin Wright

August 08, 2025 / 2:01 am

Adults of a certain age may remember McGruff the Crime Dog best. The animated bloodhound in a trench coat warned children about the dangers of using drugs in a series of both gritty and cheery public service announcements on TV in the 1980s and 1990s. McGruff was as frank about stranger danger and child abductions, once portraying the near-kidnapping of a little girl in pigtails in an ad: "If she gets into that car, you may be looking at Jenny for the last time." But perhaps most memorable is McGruff's persistent calls to "Take A Bite Out Of Crime."

Now, the Trump administration has ended federal funding for a program that in recent years worked to bring McGruff into present-

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