Dog experiments at Texas A & M

[Catherine]

Texas A & M University has been using dogs to study Muscular Dystrophy. The have been breeding golden labs to suffer from the condition. This has been going on for years. The dogs are kept in horrible conditions and are made to suffer their whole lives. Those lives are short and miserable.  Peta has been after them to stop the cruelty.

The university says they have stopped, but there are conflicting statements so maybe not.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0

There is no excuse for treating dogs that way even if they are research animals. Wouldn't the horrible conditions  mess with any results anyhow. All they will have learned is how dog bodies respond to abuse and neglect.

Here is a link to Wikipedia explaining Muscular Dystrophy

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...qPaUIhtXvA

Since Muscular Dystrophy is genetic and therefore inherited how can studying dogs help? The dogs genome and the human genome are very different.  Wouldn't it make more sense to study what mutations cause MD and research gene therapy.
I mean gene therapy for humans, not dogs. Treatments are just a temporary help. The disease is progressive and degenerative.

If Texas A & M has not stopped its experiments I hope we can pressure them to do so.