Thank you. There's no point of me to add anything because you stated it perfectly...and if you see what they do to make something "kosher" it's horrific.

I didn't like this video and chose a long time ago to avoid Iams (although I'm not sure how we can be sure it is from there?). SD and RC do animal testing, but there is no indication thus far that it would look anywhere near as terrible as this.

But all that said, some of these things are done in veterinary hospitals everyday. Dogs are tied down during surgery. They have masks on their faces sometimes. They have tubes in their throats. They lay on the floor to recover. And if they aren't breathing, I wouldn't doubt that somebody would hit their chest. They are also force fed sometimes. While I don't like seeing the kinds of things they are doing, I'm not sure it's quite as bad as it looks.

Animals serve humans in so many ways that are not fair to that animal. You see poor dogs having to go in and sniff out bombs or carry a camera into a place with a potential bomb in it, while the human officers/servicemen with families depending upon them stand back in relative safety. In war and combat, dogs are often sent into harm's way first. Police dogs are sent after men with guns to potentially save an officer. Those bombs or bad guys can and do hurt and maim those dogs in the name of "public and officer/serviceman safety". I rarely hear of outrage over putting those dogs in harm's way. They aren't treated as badly as lab dogs overall by far but they are still essentially guinea pigs, put at risk for mankind.

I know I would rest easier knowing that the medication I might be giving my little 4 week old infant has been tested for horrible side effects on a dog, pig or mouse rather than another poor little baby, which you no doubt could get in the third world in some situations! It is just one of the sad facts of life that some type of bio testing has to be done to keep vast numbers of other animals and humans safe.

And make no mistake about it, in teaching hospitals, humans without insurance are tested in new surgical, chemotherapy and medication protocols daily, very often with no knowledge or consent. It has long been a sad fact of life that those lessons learned on the indigent have helped every one of us. Do I support that? No, but that won't stop it. And you never could prove it but if you ever listen to doctors talking about their teaching hospital days you get an eye-opening course in what really goes on.

It is a sad and fallen world we live in and not fair to so many people and creatures. Where there is testing and experimentation, it should be done in only the most humane way possible, of course, and I believe in doing all we can to stop that labs and corps who allow it to happen otherwise. But I don't think we can even imagine how hazardous this life would be were medications and OTC pet and personal care items to be allowed to be marketed with only the limited testing you could get from paid volunteers.

What was the purpose of the test? I admit, I will not watch the video.

Is this how a standard feeding trial is done for a pet food?

AAFCO feeding trials are completely non-invasive (beyond the blood draws). They study what goes in the mouth and what come out as stool. And they study the blood.

Whether the housing is the same, I don't know. These Iams dogs had to lay in kennels with just the metal bars at the bottom instead of blankets.

SD doesn't do this type of testing as far as I know, nor does RC. It just varies by company.

I couldn't stand to watch a video of a serviceman being shot in the gut with massive open wounds and suffering horribly as medics work on him either. Or a fireman that has just been horribly burned as they try to help him. Or a policeman trying to stop a robbery shot point blank and watch him as he goes down and just lies there with a camera recording all the horrible things going on physically and mentally with him as he wonders if he will live. There are many things in life that have to take place to keep the world safer but I cannot intimately participate in watching it happen or would go madder than a hatter.

well I guess its all in the eye of the beholder, and the way you look at things. Sadly our society these days doesn't think they are held responsible for what others do in life. If we don't stand up for what is right, then who will. If not me or you than who will. We can't just all go along with the flow. Because then you have a country that your grand-kids live in that that no one cares about anybody else s feelings. We have to do the right thing for our own sanity and peace of mind. If its okay to treat an animal this way, then next it will be okay to treat people this way, not to say that its not already happening. We are human beings that think and feel and care about suffering of others. And if this way isn't right we find another way! I don't know all the answers, only what is right and good and what is evil. People that have these kind of occupations I am sure don't sleep well at night and suffer from all kinds of ailments. Because in their heart they know its not right. I'd hate to meet the kind of person it doesn't bother. That's a whole other animal! I sure I must of upset some people and I am sorry it bothered you. But I have to do and say whats right.

The question remains....does this mean you will use a product on your pets (food/medications) that has not been tested?

If the product fails and causes your pet to become sick or die, what will your response be?

Will you blame the manufacturer for putting out an unsafe product? Or will you understand that the manufacturer had no way of knowing if the product was safe because they had no means of testing it?

No one wants animals to suffer. But there is no way of getting around the above questions.

This is also my question.

Additionally, is non-testing even okay for things like heartworm drugs (to some of you here)? So you'd use a drug in hopes of it preventing heartworm without the company ever trying it to see if it works or how much damage it causes? You'd risk your dogs getting the disease by giving a product from a company that has no idea if it works on dogs or not?

Ideals are great and we all must have them to try to see suffering, inequality and cruelty and try to stop it, but I will line up with those that don't want to use my own family or beloved pet as a guinea pig. As police and army dogs or drafted servicemen, many serve the world at large as true heroes albeit through no choice of their own. We owe them all a great debt that we can never repay except to stop inhumane cruelty when we can.

You mean to tell me that there are not already products out there to combat heart worms, aids, heart disease,flea infestation, high cholesterol, diabetes, great foods to feed our pups, etc. etc. etc. Its all the the big companies to get more money bigger and better meat, medicine, cleansing products, house cleaning products. Just turn on tv and they have drugs for things you haven't even thought of yet. Go ask your doctor for this medicine if you have scabs on your elbows! Hey enough is enough, we have enough already, americans really are greedy. We have way more than enough of products to live a great healthy life!

As bugs or human/dog biological systems find ways to mutate and mitigate the effects of current products, new ones must always be developed. Drug-resistent flesheating bugs, vaccines that lose effectiveness when the disease mutates. And there are other problems with existing bio products: I take an eye medication that works wonders for what it was designed for but causes increased eye pressure, putting my very sight at risk, whereas a newer product treats the condition and does not cause increased intraocular pressure. Same story across the board with bio products. R&D needed desperately in so many areas.

But these products were tested on animals. If that's not okay, then why buy them?

Some flea products are losing effectiveness and there is some indication that a new strain of heartworm could require more preventatives to be made.

It's better that if a member of you family (people or pet) has a very serious disease, that they go with the drugs available right now (that were tested on animals) instead of creating more drugs that could be better?

I want my family to have the very best even if that requires animal testing. I have no desire for them to be the guinea pigs. And there is just no way that drugs can be used without trials. Food could be, but it obviously has the potential to cause a lot of harm (just look at the BB vitamin D toxicity issue), so IMO it shouldn't be.

I think Hill's has a very fair promise. I hope they stick to it because they get respect from me over it.

Blaming money is a cop out. Do you work for free and buy only what is necessary to sustain your life?

To say we have enough and that we should halt any type of progress is not something I'm willing to support. There were people in the Dark Ages who felt that way.

There are many, many diseases that we still have not tackled and that we need medications to treat.

As Ellie May has pointed out, heartworm meds are losing effectiveness. What we have is not adequate.

Human learning never stops, and neither should progress and development of new products.

I realize that this is a problem that we can't solve; but I am surprised at how many dog-lovers are pro animal-testing.

This is not a condemnation; I realize that there are some valid concerns.

I guess I just expected more voices to chime in. Certainly there are ways to use animals in some testing/trials that are not as inhumane as what we saw.

BUT, that might cost the drug company/dog food company/ etc to spend a little bit more money on the ways they do their testing. Cut down on some profit for big pharma and others.

And YES, our mass production of farm animals and meat in this country is HORRENDOUS but certainly two wrongs don't make a right.

Pointing at profits is always easy....doesn't address how to test humanely. There is no humane way to test heartworm preventatives, no matter how much money is spent.

Does this seem more fair:
Animal Welfare

Again, I don't support some of the things in that video and have no desire to feed their food partially because of that. But I'm definitely not against animal testing as a whole.

And yup, heartworms have to be injected into a dog to test a product and then the dog has to be euthanized for a necropsy. No way around it. Well, we could just hope a certain drug will work and let our dogs try it first, but that is not the standard of care that I accept for mine.

I am not happy about it to be sure, in fact I agonize over it, but far less animals suffer and die because of it.

I am not happy about how my meat source is killed either or how my lovely new leather purse was obtained. I love my pizza and lobster and Dover sole but hate to think how an animal suffered and died so I can have it.

There is so much that is horrible about how the world works but how do we keep our animals safe from unscrupulous dog product manufacturers otherwise?

Probably a staggeringly whole lot more dogs and animals suffer and die needlessly at the hands of their unfeeling owners than ever do from labs! Just look at the posts here where owners with scary-sick-or-injured dogs wait and don't get them care because they just don't want to spend the time or money getting them timely help. What about all those farm and working herding dogs who sometimes never get proper care, living out their lives as just other barnyard stock and sometimes getting some mud-and-turpentine cure. I think dog owners have a lot more to answer for than labs right now. I see/read of inhumane treatment of dogs by owners all over this world and while there are a lot of dogs suffering in labs, I would be willing to bet there are far, far more suffering in back yards and apartments and garages all over this world. There is a far bigger problem there from what I can see.

I am not "pro" animal testing or meat production methods in that I am happy with it but cannot see another way.

Of course no one can ever be sure. The benefits hopefully will outweigh the risks (unlike ProHeart).

I agree with this, it just breaks my heart that animals are used for testing. I think we should strive to find other ways! AND if animals are tested there is no reason to lock them up subject them to such cruelty-if that is still going on.

Like I said I don't have the answers either. But I still don't believe in torture of animals or humans. If that makes me anti progress than so be it. This is a debate that could escalate even unto politics. Don't get me started. Like has been said before there are some companies that are testing but in a more human way. As stated before I hated the video on the Iams products testing it was inhumane. No matter what way you look at it I will never believe torturing countless number of animals is the way to go. T
They started with the rat, why not continue with the rat. Dogs were bred for our companions from the wolf. To see them in such a state is heartbreaking. And I will never accept animal testing to that extreme!

I don't think anybody here likes it or wants to see dogs killed in the name of science. But nobody has come up with an alternative when actually testing products (usually surgeries can be practiced on cadavers, etc., but when seeing how a drug or food will metabolize, animals have to be used - and when so many are needed, housing isn't going to be great.). I'm all for alternatives when they are appropriate, but machines and cadavers can't try food or drugs.

I'd hope it is being done as humanely as possible, but what if it isn't? Are we going to boycott a drug company until they get bigger kennels or let the animals run free? Or until they stop doing surgeries or euthanizing animals (which will never happen)? Would be pretty hard to do because I'm sure a good deal of drug companies have questionable practices when it comes to this. So we boycott them all? And what happens when we or our pets need these drugs to survive? And what happens when a drug kills our dogs because it wasn't put through the proper testing? That's better than using a few animals to make sure things are safe?

Rats would be inadequate indicators. There is only so much researchers can do with them.

One of the solutions could be that you start a company with the intent not to profit but to make safe food and medicine for our pets without testing. Of course, that would take capital ($$$), tremendous personal financial risk, lots of hard work and your compensation would be only the pleasure of providing for pets. Keep plenty of $$$ on hand for the lawsuits from consumers hurt if the product fails unexpectedly and accidentally sickens or kills pets.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, rather, I am trying to look at this realistically. I believe that is the only hope for improvement is to be realistic.

I am the one that posed the initial question about testing and animal cruelty. As Ellie May pointed out, we should all become vegans and shun all animal products if we really want to end animal cruelty. We shouldn't have pets either and then we wouldn't have any need for the products. Just let nature take its course.

I don't like to think of any dog or cat stuck in a cage but it happens. It happens at our local animal shelters where millions of beautiful animals are put down everyday in this country after suffering for months and years. The meat we eat was tortured in terrible conditions before it was brought to market and inhumanly slaughtered. Every student that goes into medicine dissects various animals from college all the way through. Med students dissect human bodies that have been donated to science. The humans are the only ones that had a choice about this.
It used to be people would come through our neighborhoods stealing pets to sell to labs. It is still done but many places raise their own animals for experimenting. There is a huge amount of inhumane treatment of animals in our country that is kept quiet because most people would be horrified if they actually saw what is happening.
I am not totally against experimentation if it is done under humane conditions that are observed by outside agencies but that is not how it is done for the most part. Big companies keep their methods under cover so they can do what they want without having to answer to the public. The food industry is very careful to keep the public out of their slaughter houses. The family farm is not where we get most of our meat these days. Our beef and pork and chicken are raised under cruel conditions because it is done on a very large scale. Why do you think they are injected with antibiotics and steroids and hormones?
All these things could be corrected if brought out into the public view but no one is going to go against big companies. Do you see Animal Planet having any shows about these things? Oh, they have their animals cops going out against the individual abuser but no one is taking on a big business in the media.
We think of ourselves as a humane country but there is so much abuse that goes on under cover that we are just unaware of for the most part. I don't know the solution. It seems we are going in the direction of closing our eyes to many things we think cannot be changed or maybe we think it does not effect us directly. It used to be people would stand up for a cause but this cause seems to receive no credibility and so things remain the same. The suffering continues.

A kennel does provide real world data; I'm not sure why you think it doesn't? In fact, it's much more reliable than when food is given to people and these dogs are feed in the home environment. Too many people feed their dogs foods other than dog food, and if you’re testing dog food, this would not be as reliable and the results of the experiments could be compromised. A puppy mill isn't a puppy mill because dogs are kept in kennels. It’s a puppy mill because the dogs are crammed in tiny kennels sometimes without enough space to turn around in and that have no solid bottoms and have rusty sharp broken rails, and there’s no bedding in the kennels. Dogs aren’t given proper vet care and don’t have access to clean food and water. Dog’s aren’t exercised or groomed and the nails often grow into their paws. Puppy mills are horrendously inhumane. While I’m not a fan of commercial breeders, not all commercial breeders are puppy mills. I think it’s really important for people to realize that dogs like kennels, a dog will often chose a kennel over just a bed when given a choice; they feel very safe in a kennel. Dogs are not humans, and please don’t think I’m saying, “It’s just a dog,” because I most vehemently am not. I can fully appreciate a dog’s dogness, and think in many ways they are superior to humans, but you really need to study canine behavior before you just assume that because you wouldn’t like a kennel it’s inhumane for dogs.

I hope threads such as this cause no hard feelings; we really do need people on both sides of this to do the best job for our dogs. Animal lovers who are concerned that products are tested for safety and animal lovers who are concerned that animals are treated humanely during testing.

I believe it's realistic that my good friend - who is a RVP for a very large pharmaceutical company . . . could take a few less trips to Hawaii on the company dime.

They pay their people VERY WELL and while I know they have scaled back to some degree - their profits are obscene.

On a purely philosophical level, I will never agree that this is just how it has to be. Have we not evolved any higher than what I saw in that video? We might as well be apes living in the jungle.

It's wrong. I don't eat lobster; I don't eat veal; I don't use comestics that are tested on animals and my meat is bought at my local Farmers Market. I don't wear animal fur or leather. Free range chicken is the best I can do. I KNOW that I still benefit from all the horrible ways we treat our animals . . .but I will never say . . . that's ok with me. That's just how it is and look away.

Sometimes wrong is just wrong. It's wrong to torture when it doesn't have to be done that way.

Same goes for our meat processing plants. Some of the people that work in those places are no better than animals. Now I realize that the job probably doesn't attract the best of the best - but still.

There is no good answer; on that I agree. I disagree that nothing can ever, ever be done to make things better. If I felt that way - I would never volunteer at my local soup kitchen. There will always be homeless, right? Why bother?

I think this has shifted from no animal testing being done, period, to only animal testing if it is as humane as possible. I don't think any animal lover would argue the latter. But I'm not going to be the one boycotting drug companies to get them to change because they are a little hard to live without for some people.. Food products are a bit different. You can almost always choose a different brand.

I remember when I first joined YorkieTalk everyone was singing the praises of Greenies, and I bought some for Joey. Soon after that, I started reading about all the animals dying and the product was being recalled and reformulated. Apparently, greenies weren’t 100% digestible, and some dogs died of an intestinal blockage. Had these been properly tested in a lab, doctors could have saved the dog’s lives because they would know what signs to look for, pet owners aren’t always aware of dangers, until it’s too late. I had no idea they could even sell products not tested first. So I'm not impressed with products that brag about not being tested on animals, they just mean "It's not tested on animals in a safe controlled environment."