The BUAV has launched Our Best Friends, an exciting new campaign to raise awareness about and end the use of cats and dogs in research.
The UK is often said to be a nation of animal lovers, with dogs and cats our most popular companion animals, yet they continue to be harmed in cruel experiments and there is no Government policy to reduce their use, let alone bring it to an end. In 2011, it was reported that 4,552 experiments were carried out on dogs, and 235 experiments on cats. Worldwide, tens of thousands of cats and dogs continue to suffer in laboratories across the globe.

The BUAV has a long history campaigning on the use of cats and dogs used in research. In 1989, our investigator was the first to go undercover in a UK beagle testing facility, unearthing the terrible suffering of dogs forced to endure cruel poisoning tests. We also undertook the first ever in-depth exposé of the suffering involved in the breeding of beagles for the research industry.

Last year, we revealed controversial research taking place at Cardiff University, in which kittens’ eyes were sewn closed, causing a public outcry. In 2011 we successfully prevented stray cats and dogs from being used in UK laboratories and played a key role in alerting people across the UK to a planning proposal by Bantin & Kingman to build a replacement beagle farm in Yorkshire to breed and supply dogs for research, which was finally rejected by the Secretary of State. Our opposition to the farm and our petition, signed by thousands of people, received national and regional media coverage.

Under the banner ‘Cats and dogs are our best friends – they don’t belong in laboratories’, the BUAV will be rolling out a series of high-profile and ground-breaking activities in the coming weeks and months, calling on the public, politicians, scientists and industry to back our call for a ban on the use of cats and dogs in experiments.

– See more at: http://ourbestfriends.org/single-news.php#sthash.v809vY8t.dpuf