Liberty Research: Animal Abuser for Hire

If you were to drive by this cluster of buildings,
you might never imagine the pain and miserybehind their walls. Dogs with holes drilled into their heads,
cats suffocated under flipped-over litterboxes,dogs injected with insecticides—this is
what was documented by a PETA eyewitness atLiberty Research, a laboratory hired by companies
to conduct experiments on hundreds of dogsand cats each year. Liberty also breeds thousands of animals to
sell for experimentation to veterinary pharmaceuticalgiants, government agencies, and universities. Hundreds of animals at Liberty are treated
like inanimate laboratory tools and forcedto suffer in experiments each year,
even when well-established non-animal methodsare available. In one experiment, young dogs were injected
with megadoses of an opioid. They became lethargic and refused to eat. In another experiment, a drill was used to
bore holes into the skulls of 30 dogs so thatdistemper virus could be injected into their brains. Some dogs whimpered during the painful procedure,
indicating that they were not properly anesthetized. A senior worker said that one of the dogs
repeatedly banged her head on the cage floorand others foamed at the mouth or had seizures. A cat named Jade by PETA’s eyewitness had
seizures for weeks, each one causing temporaryparalysis, but he received no veterinary care
to treat them. When the decision was made to kill him, workers
repeatedly failed in their attempts to sedatehim and let him stumble around and fall down
before he was finally injected in the heart. When Liberty needed room for an upcoming experiment,
workers made space by killing a fully consciousdog, taking more than seven minutes and four
injections to do so. Animals were kept in squalid conditions, and
incompatible animals were frequently cagedtogether. Two dogs—called Lumpyhead and Shitter by
the workers—fought frequently but were notseparated for their own protection. When a dog named Hank by PETA’s eyewitness
was bitten by another dog, a senior workerdid not provide any care for the wound. Cats were kept in severely crowded, barren,
and stressful conditions, deprived of allthat is natural and important to them. A cat named Neville had lacerations on his
face that went untreated for months but hewas never protected from the other animals
who had injured him. Workers said
that some cats suffocated under flipped-overlitterboxes. One worker said that another cat had died
after being crushed under a collapsed restingboard. A supervisor confirmed that the lives of the
cats used in Liberty’s breeding compoundwere just as miserable. Liberty repeatedly used individual animals
in more than one experiment—even thoughthis may have affected test results. Sloppy and careless practices rendered already
questionable experiments meaningless. Liberty staff also admitted to shipping animals
to the wrong clients. In an experiment sponsored by Intervet, a
subsidiary of Merck, workers injected an insecticideinto dogs. Liberty’s clients include Merial, Bayer,
Merck, the USDA, Michigan State University,and the universities of Pittsburgh, Florida,
and Louisville, among others. Please visit PETA. org to learn how you can
help the dogs and cats at Liberty.