Furry True Crime is a genre
In 2024, the Fur and Loathing podcast came out with Guardian journalist Nicky Woolf and Dogpatch Press. The show investigated the Midwest Furfest 2014 chemical attack, based on previously unseen FBI documents and interviews across 4 states. Apple Podcasts gives it a 4.5 star rating, and it has 4.8 from critics, who call it “made with deep reverence and contribution from maligned, largely disenfranchised communities… I think Fur and Loathing is pretty much exactly what I want in true crime.” – Podcast Promise.
Those are results to keep in mind when expecting another Furry True Crime show on the way. They make 2 examples of this suddenly-a-genre (and there’s a third one coming later.) Other kinds of documentary may raise less eyebrows, but these examples aren’t fur-sploitation or salacious tragedy porn. Sorry, the mainstream already makes too much trashy stuff for weirdos who aren’t furries, go find it somewhere else…
Here you’ll find intensely curious investigations for smart people who care about problems and solutions. They feature experiences within the community, made with members, using pro resources to tell deeper stories than can be told without their combined forces. Socially responsible true crime media exists, and we’re already in it.
Streaming July 17, 2025 on AMC+, Sundance Now and SundanceTV (announcement)
The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster is a docu-series about abuse that sometimes uses furry fandom as a cover. Any community can contain abuse, like schools, churches or Boy Scouts, because it’s part of society. Solving it can start with attention and resources that haven’t yet been applied.
The four-part series examines the 2018 Zoosadist Leaks, which exposed a horrifying conspiracy of animal abuse lurking beneath the fandom’s playful exterior. It follows citizen investigators and official police investigation as they confront abuse, fight for victims, and defend their community from the evil within.
One of few other documentaries in a similar vein is the 2019 Netflix series Don’t F*ck With Cats. It focused on identifying and solving crime by one person. This one introduces the organized group kind that makes a new form of cybercrime. It may educate the public about underreported zoosadism, a term that many people don’t even know. Why now? Look into the consequences there weren’t after the 2018 leaks.
The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster is directed by Theo Love and produced by Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions. Who are they?
When the mainstream media wants a look inside furry fandom and reaches out to this site, they’re judged by past work and intentions. These pros made an impression of top notch accomplishment and creative merit. Theo Love’s The Legend of Cocaine Island applies big-budget crime thriller style to an absurd story that stands out in its genre like documentary doesn’t usually do, with wit and heart. His Alabama Snake appraises a troubling character whose trial has him judged by his past, making a fable of sin and redemption. Story and character beat preconceptions in these movies. (Theo was happy to know they were seen by this reporter on first introduction.)
A truth this reveals about us all, from the bottom to the top of society
Crime stories can be accused of painting the community as bad. Transparency is good, actually. It says the problem is not the community members who work for solutions. It’s a problem with power.
Abusers can hide behind trust and respect, and the worst kind can come from the most respected people. Every community has powerful people inside, but it’s contextual while furries are used to being marginal without a lot of credit outside. Now let’s compare some people at the top of American society and how they treat animals.
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. proudly displayed the mutilated remains of animals they killed to corruptly impress other powerful people.
Kristi Noem was Governor of South Dakota and is United States Secretary of Homeland Security. She published a widely-condemned confession of executing a dog named Cricket because he wasn’t obedient enough, followed by killing a goat because she wanted to.
“Treating animal life as so disposable is a shocking repudiation of the kind of relationships that so many of us have experienced with animals.” – The truth Gov. Noem’s puppy-killing scandal reveals about us all (Humane World for Animals)
“She was apparently still in an uncontrollable rage… Noem got angry enough to kill a dog and decided she needed to kill again.” – Noem’s dog killing was bad, but to really understand her, consider the goat (South Dakota Searchlight.)
This is a clue about how Noem later regarded humans when she made “gross and cruel” prison photos to show her power.
Cruelty from the top of society gives perspective when it exists among us, to neither accept scapegoating from above or dismiss it within. Being in community means knowing we’re not immune, but not helpless. We can take charge by empowering each other with knowledge.
You will see this represented by The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster.
The evil that furry PR can do by putting optics over solutions
Setting a crime documentary among furries isn’t an attack. It’s telling a vital story through the experiences of witnesses, instead of a detached essay, like the movie Spotlight features a community confronting abuse in a specific church.
There’s many stories about furries doing charity and making people happy, but saying to only tell good stories doesn’t help the community. It promotes helplessness and lets other people tell stories for you, giving the power to those who don’t know you, and won’t be respectful for talking about you.
The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster owns the power to tell from inside, collaborating with selected partners who have experience and resources we don’t have. However, no matter how top notch the production is, it’s likely to get some inside backlash that happens so often to the media. You may hear denial, accusation of glorifying, or broad-brush dismissal of true crime as a genre, with lack of media literacy about shows we’re already in.
(Examples withheld to not feed a drama cycle.)
These are common experiences with Furry PR, which can be evil the same way that all PR can be evil. PR is used to push bias and suppress criticism. “Bias” applies to everything, when fandom itself is a form of bias; and it’s not necessarily harmful until it makes warped priorities — as in suppressing priority on victims and solutions, and moving the priest instead.
That happens in furry fandom. It comes with selfish priorities like keeping parties safe for people with social power, while neglecting safety of others and driving away people who are mistreated. Insiders who do that are the real enemies of your community and image. Suppression with warped priorities has been a factor in many fandom stories, including the 2018 zoosadist leaks, while reporting for public interest.
The task of public interest reporting
Public interest reporting involves seeing and hearing those who are unseen. It wasn’t a task chosen by this site; the 2018 leaks were dropped on it by surprise. There was no pay for high labor, pitching for deals, or strategic boosting for hype — just a stream of tips without resources to do what paid pro news does while the issues are highly underreported.
That’s how you can get inside insight here that won’t come from mainstream sources. The coming documentary is like the tip of an iceberg. It wasn’t made to generate exclusive material, but there will be exclusive posts for the $5 subscription level on Patreon for Dogpatch Press. The modest support there helps with intense work behind the scenes.
Dogpatch Press will be at the theater premiere of The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster on June 10, at the Tribeca festival in New York City.
Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)
