PETA Exposes Dog’s Death at Texas A&M; 20 Dogs From Canine Muscular Dystrophy Lab Remain
For Immediate Release:
March 31, 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
PETA has just obtained records from Texas A&M University revealing that a German shorthaired pointer named Ned, who had been bred in a laboratory to suffer from painful canine muscular dystrophy (MD) and had been used in experiments, recently died five months shy of his 10th birthday.
Twenty dogs from Texas A&M’s canine MD laboratory—nine of whom suffer from MD and 11 of whom are healthy, as they only carry the MD gene—remain in the school’s laboratories, but while the school ended its breeding program under pressure from PETA, it has refused to allow these dogs to be adopted. PETA is urging the university and the Board of Regents to bring the matter to its logical conclusion by shutting down the laboratory and releasing the remaining dogs for adoption.
“In 2017, PETA began offering to take Ned and the other dogs and give them a real home for whatever time they have left,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Texas A&M would apparently rather watch these dogs die in misery than admit that PETA offers a real solution.”
Ned never lived anywhere but in a laboratory, and as canine MD attacked his body, he lost what little control he had over his life. Dogs with canine MD struggle to walk, swallow, and even breathe, and at just a year old, Ned was already losing weight. As the years passed, he lost flexibility and mobility—all while being subjected to repeated experiments and muscle biopsies.
In June 2020, Ned had increased trouble moving, and by October, he was chilled and needed help standing. In January 2021, he was in so much pain that he was euthanized.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
