Vet Dreams to Cyborg Dogs: College Lab Adventures Unveiled

In a split second, the future bounded around the corner and I was not prepared…

Before I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had entertained the idea of becoming a veterinarian. I read all of James Harriet’s books that were available at that time. I lived on what today would be called a homestead. It wasn’t a farm. We just had things that you typically found on a farm. (See Silence of The Hams Pt 1). We had a large garden, chickens and ducks. We had an egg route delivering to various families. That is how I paid for gas to put in my car through High School.

Therefore, it wasn’t odd that I should take a work-study job in a lab at the University. Ah, the tales I could tell you about the different gigs I had while trying to pay my way through college! While my roommate dished out cafeteria grub, my financial aid package included a peculiar work-study gig: animal training in a science lab.

**White Rabbit Lab Subject**

Rabbits were popular test subjects at the University labs.

Remind you not the whimsical dolphin tricks kind—no, we're talking cancer research on a cast of characters including rabbits, dogs, rats, mice, and rhesus monkeys. Oddly absent from the lineup? Cats. Apparently, they don't entertain that kind of gig, and who can blame them?

**Rats Test Subjects**

My duties included cleaning row upon row of rat cages.

My duties involved the essential trifecta of animal care: feeding, watering, and cleaning cages. I had just mastered the art of changing rat accommodations—three at a time, mind you—before my next task emerged. Dead rats needed a final resting place in the cooler, housed in oversized plastic waste bins. A strange skillset for a college student, yet there I was.

**Hairless Rat Test Subject**

I fed them and cleaned their cages.

Cleaning row upon row of rat and mice cages, a task I oddly excelled at. Large white or hairless rats with a penchant for red-eyed stares greeted me. Concerns of nibbles lingered as I filled their water bottles with a concoction eerily reminiscent of childhood liquid vitamins.

So, there I was, a college student paying for my education, one rat cage at a time. Welcome to the animal-filled labyrinth of my university escapades…

However, one morning, after having worked at the lab for several weeks during the summer, I turned the corner, narrowly avoiding a collision with a dog whose cranial situation resembled a sci-fi plot gone awry—the top of his head was missing, and a motherboard was embedded where it shouldn't be. Yes, I screamed, mirroring the woman in the movie classic 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' during the scene in which, they were walking down the street mingling with crowd pretending to have been changed, and the dog with the human head came towards them on the street. That was me. Blew my cover. Anyway, a young intern behind me prevented me from tripping and falling. She found it amusing, giggling as she attempted to explain the canine cyborg’s backstory at what I was seeing. I shuffled uncomfortably. Some of the other doctors and interns had slid back on their chairs, peeking out of their offices to see what the disturbance was. A young male doctor, whose experiment it was, explained in further detail that the study had something to do with tracking recovery from a stroke. (Today you rarely see a person that has suffered a stroke with the frozen or paralyzed side walking like someone out of the walking dead anymore.) He showed me computer printouts of data. It was all a blur; I was only slightly amused as I was still trying to get over the unexpected encounter. Needless to say, I left the assignment and went to work across the street at the Western Psych building.

From time to time something will cause me to recall the incident. Do the ends justify the means…To be continued.

Topics for discussion: #Animal Rights and Welfare, Alternatives to Animal Testing, Alternatives to Animal Testing, Impact on Scientific Validity, Moral and Ethical Considerations in Experiment Design.

The same qualities that make beagles excellent companions also position them as suitable candidates for laboratory experiments.

Numerous scientific journals from the Cold War era underscored that beagles possess the ideal size, physical traits, temperament, and behavior necessary for effective use as test subjects.