New Minnesota law puts lab cats, dogs up for adoption

Source: WDAZ.com

(May 26, 2014) Minnesota on Tuesday became the first state to ensure that dogs and cats used in laboratory testing be offered for adoption.

Gov. Mark Dayton signed the Omnibus Supplemental Budget Bill containing the Beagle Freedom Law.

Authored by Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, and Rep. John Lesh, DFL- St. Paul, the law facilitates a relationship between taxpayer-funded laboratories and educational institutions that use cats and dogs for research with nonprofit animal rescues...

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Veterinarians Get Funky in Alabama in Attempts to Outlaw Nonprofits

Source: Nonprofit Quarterly

(February 17, 2015) NPQ has previously covered the near-hysteria of two trade associations in Alabama that have organized to try to edge nonprofits out of their respective fields, dentistry and veterinary medicine. Their stated concern has to do with what they see as unfair competition from nonprofit and other low-cost clinics. In the case of the dentistry dust-up, the nonprofit Sarrell Clinic finally brought and won an antitrust lawsuit against the Alabama Dental Association. PBS made a documentary about the situation and NPQ’s Rick Cohen wrote a piece detailing the lessons to be derived for other nonprofits with similar issues...

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Price: How much is too much when it comes to your pet's health?

Source: Florida Today

(October 4, 2014) Pets present us with many philosophical questions. It doesn't help that they have faces so compelling and mannerisms so human-like, they can turn a human heart seemingly made of cinder block into the consistency of a strawberry smoothie...

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White House proposes more money to fight outbreaks

Source: The Hill

(February 2, 2015) The White House is proposing to increase funding to fight disease and prepare for outbreaks in the wake of the historic, ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

In its proposed 2016 budget, the Obama administration announced additional funds for domestic preparedness to "more effectively and efficiently respond to potential, future outbreaks here at home."...

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Beating the clock: researchers develop new treatment for rabies

Source: Science Daily

(January 26, 2015) Successfully treating rabies can be a race against the clock. Those who suffer a bite from a rabid animal have a brief window of time to seek medical help before the virus takes root in the central nervous system, at which point the disease is almost invariably fatal.

Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have successfully tested a new treatment on mice that cures the disease even after the virus has spread to the brain. They published their findings recently in the Journal of Virology.

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Vegetarian Diets

Source: Clinician's Brief

(January 2015) People may adopt vegetarianism for a number of reasons. They may object to eating meat for ethical reasons, desiring that animals not be killed for food, or hold religious beliefs that preclude eating animals. Others are motivated by health-related, political, environmental, cultural, aesthetic, or even economic considerations. Some owners who are vegetarian choose to extend their dietary preferences to their cats or dogs. In a study of cat owners, ethical considerations were the primary reason for feeding cats a vegetarian diet...

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U.S. Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit
Animal Welfare at Risk in Experiments for Meat Industry

Source: The New York Times

(January 19, 2015) At a remote research center on the Nebraska plains, scientists are using surgery and breeding techniques to re-engineer the farm animal to fit the needs of the 21st-century meat industry. The potential benefits are huge: animals that produce more offspring, yield more meat and cost less to raise.

There are, however, some complications.

Pigs are having many more piglets – up to 14, instead of the usual eight – but hundreds of those newborns, too frail or crowded to move, are being crushed each year when their mothers roll over. Cows, which normally bear one calf at a time, have been retooled to have twins and triplets, which often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed...

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Petco Pulls Chinese Treats Amid Fears They Sickened Pets

Source: ABC News

(January 5, 2015) Petco says it has removed Chinese-made dog and cat treats from store shelves because of concerns they have sickened thousands of pets and killed 1,000 dogs in the U.S. since 2007...

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