Texas A&M Regent to Face Protest Over Dog Experiments

PETA Supporters Will Gather Outside Elaine Mendoza’s Business to Call for Lab Closure and Release of Golden Retrievers

For Immediate Release:
October 28, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Tomorrow, a giant costumed “golden retriever” will lead PETA supporters wearing golden retriever face masks in a spirited, socially distanced protest outside Conceptual MindWorks, Inc.—a local company owned by Texas A&M University (TAMU) System Board of Regents Chair Elaine Mendoza—to call for the end of the school’s canine muscular dystrophy (MD) experiments on dogs. The protesters will also screen audio footage of dogs barking and crying in TAMU’s laboratory.

When:    Thursday, October 29, 12 noon

Where:    Conceptual MindWorks, Inc., 13409 N.W. Military Hwy. #201, San Antonio

Video footage released by PETA shows golden retrievers and other dogs at TAMU who were deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of canine MD struggling to walk, swallow, and even breathe. Under pressure from PETA supporters, 500 physicians, and people with MD, TAMU stopped breeding dogs to develop the disease. The lead experimenter has retired, and many of the nearly 100 dogs were adopted into homes—but the laboratory still keeps 25 dogs imprisoned there.

“Texas A&M has no use for these dogs and is apparently refusing to let them go out of spite,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on Chair Elaine Mendoza to be a leader and shut down this despicable laboratory now.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.