Dogs to Bark Against Cruel University-Funded Experiments on Golden Retrievers

PETA Will Call On University of Florida to Stop Funding Wasteful Muscular Dystrophy Tests on Dogs

For Immediate Release:
April 23, 2018

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

What:    At the start of World Week for Animals in Laboratories, a group of students, PETA supporters, and at least one dog will gather on the University of Florida’s (UF) campus for a spirited protest against the school’s funding of muscular dystrophy experiments on dogs at Texas A&M University (TAMU).

When:    Monday, April 23, 2:30 p.m.

Where:    University of Florida’s Turlington Plaza, 330 Newell Dr., Gainesville

“Experimenters have been breeding dogs to suffer from a canine form of muscular dystrophy for four decades, yet no cure or successful treatment for the disease in humans has been found,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the University of Florida to stop funding these useless and indefensibly cruel experiments.”

During World Week for Animals in Laboratories, PETA supporters, with their dogs, will also protest universities in Columbia, Missouri; Seattle; Gainesville, Florida; Reno, Nevada; and Philadelphia, which support TAMU’s dog lab, as well as demonstrating against TAMU on its College Station, Texas, campus.

PETA has obtained video footage from inside TAMU’s laboratories, which shows dogs deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of muscular dystrophy struggling to walk, swallow, and even breathe. Those who don’t exhibit symptoms but carry the gene for the disease are used for breeding, and they frantically pace and bite the bars of the small cages to which they’re confined.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.