Picture a different life for the dog who loyally sits by your feet every night or who dances with excitement when she sees you — a dog like my beagle mix, Lily, who quickly became a member of my family when we adopted her some months ago.
Imagine, instead, that dog in a laboratory, confined to a cage and taken out of the cage primarily for invasive procedures that result in extended suffering and pain. The life of a dog in a laboratory is no life at all.
In recent years, we’ve seen the number of dogs used in medical research decline, and that’s a good thing. Two million were used annually in the 1960s. Today, it is about 65,000 — still too many, but we’re moving in the right direction. Recently, the Humane Society of the United States released the results of its undercover investigation at Georgia Regents University in Augusta that vividly makes the case that we need to accelerate the process of reducing the use of dogs in invasive experiments.
The investigation allegedly uncovered the case of dogs subjected to horrible and painful dental implant experiments, and then summarily killed and thrown in the trash. Our investigator developed a very special bond with one of the dogs who was malnourished and scared of men. The investigator named this little fellow Shy-Guy.
Shy-Guy and five other dogs had their teeth pulled out and dental implants put in place — and weeks later, they were killed, according to the HSUS investigation. The university allegedly has been conducting similar experiments on dogs for years.
Our investigator also documented alleged problems with animal care and compliance with federal laws at the university. This encompassed the treatment of monkeys, mice and rats, in addition to dogs.
We found that the university bought these poor dogs from a random-source Class B dealer in Minnesota. These substandard dealers obtain dogs from auctions, flea markets and “free to good home” ads in newspapers. Then they sell them to laboratories. The worst-case scenario is when a stolen pet ends up in a research laboratory.
There’s a lot of history behind this suffering. The founders of the HSUS were at the forefront of exposing the animal dealer pipeline that rounded up dogs and sold them to laboratories. This very issue prompted passage of the first federal law in the United States to address the welfare of animals in laboratories, the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966. Yet despite tighter restrictions on how animals are sourced by laboratories, random-source Class B dog dealers continue to operate as bottom feeders in the pipeline.
We are calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to crack down on Class B dealers and to finally make them a thing of the past. USDA has done a good job on the issue in recent years, and it’s now it’s time to finish the job.
Georgia Regents needs a new approach, too. This is the 21st century, and we should expect more from science-minded universities. There’s no genuine excuse for inflicting this kind of suffering on animals; modern methods are more reliable and cost-effective. As professional dental surgeons have told us, we can continually improve dental techniques by working with patients, at no risk to them.
The public entrusts institutions like Georgia Regents University with millions of dollars in taxpayer funding — $50 million to this one institution. In return, Americans deserve research and testing based on innovative technologies without harming animals.
What our investigator allegedly found at Georgia Regents University should not have happened. It should never happen again — not there, or anywhere else.
Wayne Pacelle is president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.
