Over the summer, a prestigious research lab called my school. There had been a research project approved there for which they had acquired ten dogs. Something happened, and the project was cancelled, so they had ten dogs without homes. Ten beautiful, six-month-old pups. They called the school because they would rather have seen these pups in loving homes than euthanized.
The school was scrambling to find foster homes for all of the puppies, so one student went to a local shelter to ask them for a foster spot in case we couldn't find fosters for all of the puppies right away. We were still going to find fosters among the students, but a few people had situations that would require them to wait a month or so before taking the dogs.
Not only did the shelter turn us down, they went off and badmouthed the research lab to EVERYONE. Word rapidly got back to the company that was originally going to run the trial, and the CEO told the lab to euthanize all of the puppies.
Now, why did the shelter have to do that? I know research isn't an ideal situation, but this lab had a surplus of healthy dogs and wanted to see them in loving homes because their staff CARED ABOUT THEM. People don't seem to realize that the standard of care labs are held to is enormously meticulous.
Now, thanks to so-called "animal welfare" people, ten six month old puppies are dead. You think the lab is going to think of us next time it has a surplus?
This isn't the first time something like this has happened...
Stanford used to have a HUGE program adopting out animals once they were done with various trials. They had a small breeding program for dobermans, breeding for narcolepsy. In each litter, there were a few healthy puppies who got adopted out to loving homes. Other animals used in other trials were also adopted out.
In one trial, the researcher doing the study noticed that it seemed to be taking a toll on a very nervous dog. She contacted the nursing staff and volunteered to pull the dog from the trial so he could be adopted out. He was, and that person wound up rehoming him to someone who contacted the media and put a giant picure of the dog's face in the newspaper under the headline "STANFORD RIPPED OUT MY VOCAL CORDS!"
Now, this dog had come to Stanford already debarked. Again, not ideal, but it wasn't Stanford's fault. BUT...after that bit of bad press, they stopped adopting out animals altogether. It breaks my heart to think of how many perfectly wonderful animals had their chances ruined by this so-called "animal welfare activist".
As someone who wants to work in research one day, I find this INFURIATING!
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