PETA Protesters Disrupt Texas A&M Board of Regents Meeting

This World Week for Animals in Laboratories, PETA is continuing to call on Texas A&M University to end cruel muscular dystrophy (MD) experiments on golden retrievers and other dogs in the school’s laboratory. During a Texas A&M Board of Regents meeting, a PETA supporter took the floor holding a sign that read, “Close Muscular Dystrophy Dog Lab,” and she proclaimed, “At Texas A&M University, golden retrievers are bred to have a debilitating disease. This disease leaves their bodies ravaged, and their hearts are deteriorating”—before being escorted out. As she was ushered out of the room, she continued to shout, “Shut the dog labs down!”

Eyewitness video footage obtained by PETA shows dogs who were deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of canine MD. As the disease ravages their bodies, they struggle to walk, swallow, and even breathe. In addition to this disruption, protesters also confronted the board at a second meeting.

These cruel experiments on dogs can never be justified and must end right now.

Thirty-five years of breeding and tormenting golden retrievers and other dogs to suffer and die in pain haven’t resulted in a cure or even a treatment that can reverse the course of MD in humans.

In the footage, thin dogs suffering from MD were caged, sometimes alone, in barren metal cells. Their swollen tongues and weakened jaw muscles made it difficult for them to swallow even thin gruel, and strings of saliva hung from their mouths. The disease makes walking difficult, too, and they became increasingly crippled. Dogs without symptoms but who carried the gene for the disease were kept caged and used for breeding. The video shows them frantically pacing on the hard slatted floors and biting at the bars of small cages in frustration.

You can join PETA in calling on Texas A&M to send the dogs to loving adoptive homes and to commit to cutting-edge, animal-free research.