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[draggonlaady]

So there's good news out there from the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights (AVAR). In their most recent newsletter (Directions), they've congratulated WSU's College of Veterinary Medicine for eliminating terminal procedures in their core classes. Better late than never, I guess, since WSU did that several years ago, but as of fall 2003, AVAR was still publishing newsletters saying that WSU required all students to perform a terminal procedure. Whatever.

Comments

[khiril.livejournal.com]

Perform a terminal procedure would be the less colloquial version of "putting to sleep"?

Glad that it isn't required. Could suck to have to do it for the first time with a client animal.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what it means. Which is sort of a major thing for the animal rights people to get wrong...they throw all kinds of fits about it. Really annoying when the fits come after the issue's been resolved.

[winnett.livejournal.com]

Not wanting to abuse healthy animals is one reason I didn't become a vet. I could not have done the schooling. I am happy to know animals are not killed in teaching at WSU now and admittedly shocked to find this out. I used to donate money to the vet school to be aimed at developing new teaching techniques that do not require unnecessary operation type work, disection, etc. of animals. I don't donate money anymore though, but hopefully my little $50 did something positive. ;)

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

Nobody (sane) wants to abuse healthy animals. And while PETA seems to want everyone to believe that the students are here to learn how to better torment innocent animals, they're wrong. I REALLY wish they wouldn't spread misinformation about what we do, and that people would ASK the college before they start campaigning against us...created much havoc and trouble recently :(. We still do dissections, but have reduced the number of animals used (which crowds more students around each dog), and all of them are dogs which were slated for euthanasia anyway. The large animal specimens we use are purchased at sale, and would have gone to slaughter if they didn't come here. We really don't go out looking for a bunch of animals to kill for no reason. The dogs we learn surgery on are Humane Society dogs from around the state, and after we spay them and treat any problems they come in with (kennel cough and abrasions usually, altho we had 2 dogs whelp while here this semester), we try to adopt out as many as we can so they don't go back to the shelter. If they're not adopted here, they get sent back to the shelter that sent them, and get another stint looking for a home there. There is (I think) one terminal procedure still offered in an elective course (which I'm not taking), the dog is anesthetized and several different procedures done. The dog is then euthanized without being woken up, so it never has to experience the pain from the procedures.

[winnett.livejournal.com]

You really have a thing for PETA don't you.

So your telling me you never disected anything in vet school? Hell I had to disect frogs and cats in jr. high and high school. Other people I knew had to do pigs at some point as well. I would have assumed vet school had you cutting stuff up.

Okay, I see you just answered my question, I didn't read your whole response before I typed the above... But I state my point. Things still die for your education, which is something I could not partake in.

I think it is great you adopt out the dogs you get from the humane society. I read in the news paper years ago that Spokane was selling animals to wsu vet school. Which is kinda sucky. I wonder if they adopted out those. I hope so.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

No, what I'm saying is that the animals we dissect were being put down anyway. All of the dogs that WSU vet students work on are Humane Society Animals. The anatomy dogs and the terminal procedure dogs (the only 2 groups of dogs that are put down) are dogs that were slated for euthanasia at the Humane Society because they hadn't been adopted. I think, but am not sure, that the dogs Spokane was selling to WSU were cadavers that had been euthanized at the shelter and were being used in the anatomy lab. All of the large animals we use in our labs were being sold to slaughter; the end result is that all of the animals that "die for my education" were dying anyway, nothing was sought out to be killed, or taken from a home.

Everything that can be re-used is; the anatomy class I'm currently taking is using specimens that were dissected 5 to 50 years ago, and are preserved or freeze dried.

The "thing" I have for PETA started when they sent out mass mails to Washington residents telling them that WSU students are forced to kill animals, lab techs abuse and neglect the animals we use, students are doing multiple painful and invasive procedures on every animal, and that we're using mind-altering drugs on them. The result of this is that several of our labs ended up using student dogs because our arranged sources backed out mid-semester. My counter to the accusations is that the only terminal procedure is elective, not required; the lab techs have on several occassions threatened to fail students for not checking on their dogs at least 2 times a day BEFORE surgery (perfectly healthy dogs); PETA appears to be counting temperature taking and catheterization as painful and invasive procedures, because besides spaying them, that's all we do to them; and the only "mind-altering drugs" we use are the induction and anesthetic drugs...and nobody can reasonably expect us to do surgery without anesthesia.

Obviously, vet students would not be willing to let their own dogs be used in a lab they felt was cruel to the animals. The reason we usually rely on Humane Society animals is two-fold: 1, it's easier to find intact animals for spay labs and reproductive exam labs and 2, it's less expensive and (usually) more reliable for the number of animals.

[winnett.livejournal.com]

Happy to her the vet school reuses things, that is nice to know.

But there is animal testing at the vet school, unless that part has been closed down. Because I worked there my sophomore year. Specifically on the mind altering drug thing, they tested alcohol and cocain on rats and didn't feed them food at all for long periods of time because they wanted them to only eat the cocain mixture. I couldn't believe I worked there. I thought I could make it better for the rats, what a cop out, I really just needed a job. I didn't better anything for them. Things we do for money.

My thought on that is to find alcoholics and cocain addicts and test their reactions... but that would be unethical.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about the research labs, I've never worked in them. They are seperate from the curriculum, and for the most part, students aren't involved with them. Sorry you had a bad experience. But what PETA was saying wasn't about the research labs. They said that students were using mind-altering drugs on the dogs in our classes, which is not true.

It would be really nice if it was easier to get approval to use human subjects for research. Would definitely make several things more accurate and easier to interpret! Somehow I doubt Bushie will go for passing something like that though :(.