In 2020, the University of Washington (“UW”) reported exploiting 21 dogs in experimental research. Nineteen of these victims may forever remain shrouded in the darkness the animal research industry works so intentionally and aggressively to maintain, but — on account of public records uncovered by Rise for Animals — two of them can, at least posthumously, be stepped into the light and be seen.

Meet Moe and Tanner, two youngsters sold to and killed by the UW before their second birthdays.

Moe and Tanner were hound mixes (sometimes identified by their abusers as “mongrels”) born into human servitude at Oak Hills Genetics LLC in Ewing, Illinois — an active, USDA-registered “Class A – Breeder” for the animal research industry. After living the first year of their lives as commodities awaiting purchase, they were ordered by and shipped to the UW, each accompanied by a literal packing slip that identified them as a “Male Research Dog”. 

Only there is no such thing as a “research dog”. 

Dogs are dogs, and, fundamentally, Moe and Tanner were no different than the dogs with whom we share our homes — they were only less fortunate.

Moe and Tanner both met similar, harrowing fates at the UW, as they were forced to “model” abnormal human prostates.

Once at the UW — after being received, examined, “accepted”, and assigned numerical identification numbers — both boys were assigned to the Urology Department and subjected to Protocol #4365-02 (PROTO201700184) — “Histotripsy Prostate (Dogs)”. 

Funded by federal agencies including the National Cancer Institute, this protocol contemplated a painful (USDA Category D), non-survival study, meaning that the subjects would experience physical pain followed by unnatural death. Moe and Tanner were bought for this study because they were male, unneutered dogs, and because, given their sizes, their bodies were large enough to accommodate the human appendages and invasive equipment that would be forced into their rectums repeatedly after their prostates were either implanted with tumors or enlarged by non-cancerous means. 

Over a period of months, they were subjected to painful injections, blood draws, rectal ultrasounds, and rectal probes — and, then, before their second birthdays, they were killed (or, in the words of their killers, “harvested”).

The physical pain that Moe and Tanner endured as experimental subjects is difficult, if not impossible, to envision. Human sufferers of diseased and enlarged prostates report symptoms including pain and burning during urination; pain in their backs, pelvic and rectal areas, and upper thighs; difficult and frequent urination, pain in their penises and testicles; and painful bowel movements — and all of these distressing experiences stand apart from the pokes, prods, and probes to which Moe and Tanner were repeatedly subjected. 

Additional to these pains (Tanner’s prostate got “really big” and he consistently urinated blood, resulting in his being killed earlier than planned), both Moe and Tanner experienced other physical suffering: Moe was left with untreated entropion (which means his eyelashes were scratching his eyeballs), and Tanner was found with various injuries attributed to either cage confinement or self trauma, including skin lesions (for which researchers’ “treatment” included the application of bitter apple spray), rashes, and a broken and bloodied tail tip. 

And, yet, still, the physical agony may not have been the worst of it for them. 

During their short, commodified lives, Moe and Tanner may well have suffered even more emotionally than they did physically. They were housed alone and repeatedly showed kindness to and sought comfort from the only beings with whom they were allowed to interact: their abusers.

No sentient being should be used as means to others’ ends, yet this is the very fabric of the animal research industry, which cloaks its exploitation, torture, and killing of some in hollow platitudes of “empathy” and “progress” for others. 

But, there is plainly and irrefutably nothing empathetic or advancing about what Oak Hill Genetics LLC and the UW did to Moe and Tanner.

Or what the University of Washington did to the other 17 dogs unlucky enough to find themselves in its lab cages in 2020.

Or what any animal research institution does to untold numbers of sentient beings, who suffer fates similar to Moe and Tanner each year. 

All are a part of the unethical, unscientific industry that unapologetically profits from the births, tortures, and killings of beings like Moe and Tanner — and that must be stopped. 

In under a minute, you can take action in favor of science that helps people without hurting animals like Moe and Tanner. Urge your Senators to support the FDA Modernization Act 3.0 now:

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