What is the ultimate betrayal?

While you may never be able to imagine turning your back on your best friend, sadly, it happens to an untold number of dogs and cats who find themselves in shelters each year. Cruella, a stray dog found roaming the streets of Carson City, Michigan, may have thought she was being rescued when shelter workers picked her up. Instead, she was turned over to R&R Research, a random source class B animal dealer that shipped her over 1,000 miles with 13 other dogs to the University of Florida for use in veterinary teaching labs. Cruella was most likely someone’s pet, as she was found wearing a purple collar and had already been spayed.

Random source class B animal dealers are in the business of selling animals at an enormous profit to research and education facilities. In addition to sentencing former pets to a life of confinement and use in experiments, the majority of random source class B dealers have been cited for Animal Welfare Act violations including obtaining dogs and cats from illegal sources, housing animals in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, having structural problems with facilities, and/or failing to provide animals with proper veterinary treatment.

Random source class B dealers get animals from a variety of places, such as other animal dealers, or people who breed and raise animals themselves, as well as through pound seizure, the release of animals from shelters and pounds for use in research facilities. Pound seizure is required in Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah, while other states allow it or have no law against it.

Pound seizure is the ultimate betrayal. Not only does it erode the very core of a shelter’s purpose to provide safe haven to lost or relinquished animals, it also betrays the trust that animals put in us as their caregivers. Animals who were once pets likely lived a varied life with certain freedoms, which they are not afforded in a laboratory setting. In addition to the physical pain and suffering they will most likely endure in experiments, socially-isolated laboratory confinement can be psychologically traumatizing as well.

Find out how much you know about the ultimate betrayal by taking the quiz below. Answer all of the questions correctly, and you could win a free screensaver to show off your compassion for animals in labs.

Also, if you have not already done so, please contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture and urge the agency to revoke the license of class B dealer R&R Research, due to its triple violation of the Protection of Pets section in the Animal Welfare Act.

Class B Dealer Quiz

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