End Laboratory Testing on Dogs

The Scale of Suffering

Every year, approximately sixty thousand dogs endure testing and research in United States laboratories, with an additional sixty-five hundred dogs held in facilities awaiting their turn in experiments.¹ The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented that sixteen thousand thirteen dogs experienced pain as part of research protocols in 2019 alone.² Most of these dogs are beagles, deliberately chosen because their naturally docile temperament makes them easy to handle and their convenient size facilitates laboratory procedures.¹ We breed them for their trusting nature, then exploit that trust to inflict suffering.

This systematic cruelty represents not only a moral failure but also an increasingly obsolete scientific practice. Modern alternatives to animal testing deliver more accurate results faster and more humanely than tests on dogs whose physiological responses often poorly predict human outcomes. We possess both the ethical imperative and the technological capacity to end laboratory testing on dogs. We need only the political will to mandate the transition to superior research methods that do not require inflicting suffering on sentient beings.

Congressional Progress: FDA Modernization Act 2.0

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 into law, eliminating the federal mandate for animal testing for new drugs that had remained in place since 1938.³ This landmark bipartisan legislation, co-authored by Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rand Paul of Kentucky, permits the use of scientifically superior alternatives to animal testing.³ The law passed the United States Senate on September 29, 2022, by unanimous consent without amendments, reflecting broad political consensus that modern science has evolved beyond the need for mandatory animal testing.⁴

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 explicitly authorizes nonclinical tests that may include cell-based assays using human induced pluripotent stem cells, organoids and organs-on-chips that replicate human microphysiological systems, advanced artificial intelligence methods such as generative adversarial networks and language models, computer modeling and bioprinting, and other human biology-based test methods.⁴ These alternatives are not only more humane than testing on dogs—they often prove more accurate precisely because they use actual human cells and biological systems rather than attempting to extrapolate from canine physiology to human responses.⁴

The law’s wording does not prohibit the use of animals but instead allows researchers the opportunity to use the most rigorous scientific methods available, whatever they may be.⁴ Under this new legal framework, animal testing can still occur, but alternative testing methods now represent a legitimate option that drug developers can select without fearing FDA rejection of their applications.⁴ This represents crucial progress, opening the door for researchers to choose superior methods over outdated animal tests.

The Humane Cosmetics Act

Building on the momentum of FDA Modernization Act 2.0, Representatives Don Beyer of Virginia, Vern Buchanan of Florida, Paul Tonko of New York, Ken Calvert of California, and Tony Cárdenas of California introduced the Humane Cosmetics Act of 2025 as H.R. 1657.⁵ This bipartisan legislation would end safety testing of cosmetic products on animals and prohibit the sale of cosmetics developed using animal testing in the United States.⁵ A Senate companion bill is expected to follow later in the current Congress.⁶

The legislation specifies that beginning one year after enactment, conducting or contracting for cosmetic animal testing within the United States would become unlawful.⁷ The statute defines “cosmetic animal testing” as the internal or external application or exposure of any cosmetic product, cosmetic ingredient, or nonfunctional constituent to the skin, eyes, or other body part of a live non-human vertebrate.⁷ This language establishes comprehensive protection covering all forms of cosmetic testing that inflict pain or distress on animals.

The Personal Care Products Council—the leading national trade association representing cosmetic and personal care products companies—endorses this legislation.⁶ This industry support demonstrates that cosmetics companies recognize they can develop safe, effective products without torturing rabbits, mice, or other animals. In the previous Congress, one hundred eighty-eight House members and twenty Senators cosponsored the Humane Cosmetics Act, reflecting growing political momentum for ending an unnecessary and cruel practice.⁶

Recent Victories Against Dog Experimentation

The tide is turning against dog experimentation as scientific progress renders it obsolete and public consciousness awakens to its cruelty. The National Institutes of Health shuttered the last beagle laboratory on its campus in 2025, marking a symbolic end to decades of federally funded experiments on dogs at America’s premier biomedical research institution.⁸ This decision followed years of advocacy by animal welfare organizations and mounting evidence that alternatives produce better science.

Seventeen states have now passed legislation requiring laboratories to allow dogs and cats to be adopted after their use in testing, ensuring that animals who survive experiments can live out their remaining years in loving homes rather than being killed when researchers no longer need them.⁸ Michigan passed Teddy’s Law in 2023, making it the sixteenth state to mandate adoption programs.⁸ Colorado followed with similar legislation in 2023, becoming the seventeenth state.⁸ These state-level victories demonstrate that Americans across the political spectrum reject the notion that laboratory animals deserve death simply because their research utility has ended.

In 2022, federal authorities rescued four thousand beagles from the Envigo breeding and research facility in Cumberland, Virginia, after U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections revealed appalling mistreatment and blatant disregard for animal welfare.² The facility bred beagles specifically to sell to research laboratories, operating essentially as a factory farm for dogs destined for experimentation. The conditions documented by USDA inspectors shocked even hardened animal welfare advocates. The rescue of these four thousand beagles generated enormous public attention, forcing many Americans to confront the reality of an industry that breeds dogs in squalid conditions solely to supply laboratories with docile test subjects.

The Limits of Current Reform

While the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 represents significant progress, it does not prohibit animal testing.⁴ Researchers can still choose to test on dogs even when scientifically superior alternatives exist. We need stronger federal legislation that mandates the use of non-animal alternatives when they are available and scientifically valid. Such a mandate would prevent researchers from defaulting to familiar animal tests simply because they have always used them, forcing the scientific community to embrace the superior methods that modern technology provides.

We must prohibit testing on dogs except in truly extraordinary circumstances where absolutely no alternative exists and where the potential human health benefit clearly justifies the animal suffering. Such extraordinary circumstances should require independent ethical review and public justification, not rubber-stamp approvals from institutional committees dominated by researchers who benefit from continuing animal experimentation.

We must require adoption programs in all laboratories that still use dogs, ensuring that every animal who survives testing can live out their life in a loving home after serving science. The current patchwork of state laws creates inconsistency, with dogs in states lacking adoption mandates killed automatically while identical dogs in neighboring states find families. Federal law should establish universal protection.

We must fund research and development of additional non-animal testing methods, recognizing that even current alternatives may not cover every testing scenario. Public investment in developing and validating new alternatives will accelerate the transition away from animal testing and establish American leadership in next-generation research methods.

We must provide grants and support to help laboratories transition to alternative testing methods, recognizing that some facilities may need financial assistance to purchase new equipment, train staff in unfamiliar techniques, or restructure protocols around human biology-based systems. Eliminating economic barriers to adopting alternatives will speed their uptake.

We must impose transparency requirements so the public knows which companies and institutions test on dogs. Consumers deserve information about whether products they purchase were developed through dog experimentation. Institutional purchasers like universities and hospitals should know which suppliers use dogs for testing. Transparency creates accountability and enables market forces to reward companies that embrace humane research methods while penalizing those that cling to outdated animal tests.

The Cruelty We Must Confront

Undercover investigations by animal welfare organizations have documented horrifying abuse. Beagles are poisoned with pesticides and drugs to test chemical toxicity.⁹ They are subjected to painful procedures without adequate pain relief because researchers consider pain management an experimental variable that might confound results. They spend their entire lives confined in small cages, never experiencing grass beneath their paws or the simple joy of running free. After experiments conclude, they are killed even when they could easily be adopted into families who would cherish them.⁹

Dogs used in research often endure multiple experiments over their lifetimes, categorized by facilities as “used, reused, or euthanized” depending on research needs.¹⁰ One report described this grim lifecycle where dogs who survive an initial experiment face additional protocols until they finally become unsuitable for further use and are killed.¹⁰ These are sentient beings capable of forming deep emotional bonds, experiencing joy and contentment, feeling pain and fear, and suffering psychological trauma from confinement and abuse. They deserve immeasurably better than what we inflict upon them.

The Moral Imperative

As a society, we recognize dogs as companions, family members, and friends. We celebrate their loyalty, intelligence, and capacity for affection. We grieve deeply when our own dogs die. Yet we simultaneously allow tens of thousands of dogs to suffer in laboratories when alternatives exist that would produce better science. This contradiction reflects a profound failure of compassion and imagination—a stubborn refusal to extend to laboratory dogs the same moral consideration we automatically grant to dogs who happen to live in homes rather than cages.

Medical and scientific progress does not require animal suffering. By investing in cutting-edge alternatives like organ-on-chip technology, AI-driven modeling of human biological responses, and sophisticated computer simulations, we can advance science while honoring our stated values regarding animal welfare. The technology exists. The science increasingly demonstrates that these alternatives produce results more relevant to human health than animal tests ever could. All that remains missing is the political will to mandate their use and ban the unnecessary infliction of suffering on dogs.

Every beagle confined in a laboratory cage represents a failure to align our laws with our values or our technology. Every dog poisoned with toxins that could have been tested using human-cell assays demonstrates science proceeding from inertia rather than innovation. Every experiment on a dog that could have been conducted using organoids or computer models reveals our collective willingness to tolerate cruelty for convenience.

We possess the moral clarity to recognize this cruelty, the technological capacity to eliminate it, and the democratic power to ban it through legislation. We must exercise that power. The tens of thousands of dogs suffering in laboratories today cannot wait for gradual cultural shifts or voluntary industry reform. They need federal law prohibiting their abuse and mandating adoption of the superior alternatives that modern science provides. We must pass comprehensive legislation banning non-essential laboratory testing on dogs, requiring the use of alternatives when they exist, and ensuring that every dog who survives research finds a loving home. It is time to end this cruelty.

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