UNPEACEABLE KINGDOM

THERE ARE EIGHT CAGES IN A LOCKED ROOM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF Texas Southwestern Medical Center, one of dozens of similar rooms in the massive wing known as the Animal Resources Center. Six small dogs sit in the cages, howling and wiggling with pleasure when a person approaches them. In addition to their average size, the animals have a few things in common. The tags on their cages read, “Canine, Mongrel, Forney,” meaning that they’re all mutts that have been purchased at the City of Dallas Animal Shelter on Forney Road. And there’s another, more gruesome similarity.

“These dogs are all going to have heart attacks,” says Tom Darby, assistant director of the Animal Resources Center. Of course, they’ll be anesthetized first. Then researchers will watch as a heart attack is induced to see just how the muscle damage occurs and whether new drugs designed to prevent the damage seem to be working. The animals will never reawaken; after the experiment, they will be given fatal overdoses of anesthesia.

This experiment is one of more than 250 animal research projects to be undertaken here this year. In another room, dogs recover from surgeries in which one kidney has been removed and blood flow has been restricted to the remaining kidney, so that scientists can study the effects of hypertension. A pending research application requires infecting the eyes of mice with a particular amoeba that affects wearers of soft contact lenses. These experiments and others like them have touched off a prolonged, bitter war between those who would end research on animals and those who claim the right to use animals in the pursuit of human knowledge.

At least 17 million animals are used in laboratory experiments each year around the country, and scientists cite an enormous-and impressive-track record. More than thirty cancer-fighting drugs now in use, as well as radiation and chemotherapy treatments, were tested on animals. We know that cigarette smoke leads to emphysema because of tests on dogs ten years ago. Experiments on dogs, cows, and pigs resulted in the discovery of insulin for diabetics. Monkeys and cats, who have immune systems similar to humans and also show some of the same signs of senility in old age, are being used to study treatments for both AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease. Monkeys, dogs, rabbits, and guinea pigs are models for research and surgery to prevent and repair artherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. The first lithotripsy (kidney stone pulverizing) operations were performed on sheep.

Around the country, the vast majority (85 percent) of lab creatures are rats and mice. Southwestern Medical Center is no exception-on most days. 38,000 of the 42.000 animals on hand are rodents. There are also about 950 rabbits. 100 chickens, 100 dogs, two dozen cats, some monkeys, pigs, possums, and even an occasional armadillo (to study how the brain processes information received from the eyes).

Unlike other major cities, Dallas is only beginning to feel the effects of a nationwide “animal ethics” movement. Thus far, UT has been spared the colorful demonstrations by animal lovers, armed with gory photographs on placards, who demand an end to the use of animals in research. They’ve picketed at Cornell, at Emory, at Harvard, at Stanford. In most cases they have met with some degree of cooperation and have even won concessions from researchers. While the experiments have not been stopped altogether, greater precautions are taken to ensure that the animals do not suffer. At the same time, the research facilities are spending money to beef up security systems after burglaries (to “liberate” lab animals) and bomb threats.

The UT researchers have learned plenty from the experiences of their compatriots. Every animal at The Southwestern Medical Center is under lock and key. An eleven-person Institutional Review Board for Animal Research meets monthly at the university to evaluate the merits and parameters of each proposed project before funding can be requested. The board decides whether the right kinds and numbers of animals are being used and whether the experimental procedures can be administered humanely.

“We review the welfare of the animals more than the scientific work,” says Dr. Steven Pakes, director of the Animal Resources Center and a committee member. “Some studies have been questioned severely and a couple have been disapproved because we questioned the expenditure of animals on the question being asked in the study. But our scientists by and large are asking all the right questions. It’s doubtful that they would propose anything frivolous.”

“Grants are hard to get,” adds Tom Darby, who, like Pakes, is a pet owner. “The funding rate is only about 20 percent. So if it’s not good science, it’s not going to be funded. There’s just not enough money.”

In their white lab coats, Darby and Pakes are serious-minded but not stuffy. Venturing into the various rooms, they introduce many of the animals by name-in one lab, the dogs are all named after famous boxers (fighters, not dogs). On one door, a “Marmaduke” cartoon is pasted-Marmaduke, a huge, friendly dog, cowers behind a small child who is explaining to his parent: “A pit bull took his lunch money.”

The UT scientists claim to be both frustrated and confused by the demands of the animal rights groups. Nationally, there are approximately 7.000 such organizations, but their aims and tactics vary widely. The most radical factions demand an all-out ban on animal testing; other, more moderate groups criticize the fur industry, or ask that students not be required to dissect animals in biology classes. “The thing gets real muddled, because some of the groups agree on some of the issues, but not on others,” says Pakes, who finds it hard to trust the activists’ motives. “First, they’ll ask that we not buy animals from the pound for research. But then, when we start using the more expensive laboratory-bred animals, they’ll go after us for that too. At least, that’s what has happened in other places.”

But local animal rights groups are quick to point out that they are not condemning the use of all animals in research, just those that are most likely former house pets. To date, the debate in Dallas has focused only on the issue of so-called “pound seizure,” or the sale of animals by city-run shelters for medical research.

“What’s sad about it is the animals that the researchers pick almost had to be somebody’s pet at one time,” says Carol Cobb over the din of barking dogs at the Dallas Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter on South Industrial Boulevard, where Cobb has been executive director since 1985. She is occasionally interrupted by visits from the “office dog” and “office cat,” who roam in and out at will and require frequent petting.

“There’s a sort of sacred bond between people and their pets,” Cobb says. “People who don’t have pets may laugh, but it’s not only insensitive, it’s insulting to think that if they lost their pet. it could end up in a research lab. I would rather, if I never found my pet for some reason, that it be humanely euthanized.”

Many cities-including Atlanta, Boston. Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.-have banned the pound seizure practice. Twelve states have outlawed it. But in Dallas, universities and private corporate laboratories are still permitted to obtain dogs and cats from the pound.

Today, when individuals go to the city shelter and ask to adopt a dog, they are directed to the Ivor O’Connor Morgan wing. (Sec related story on page 81.) It has its own entrance and contains twenty-two cages. Dogs that have been deemed “adoptable” by the shelter’s staff veterinarians spend their days waiting there to be taken to new homes. But hundreds more dogs are kept elsewhere in the shelter and euthanized by lethal injection after three days if their owners fail to claim them. Cats are euthanized after only twenty-four hours. To minimize overcrowding, the process is so speedy that should your pet escape while you’re on a week-long vacation, it could be dead-or in a researcher’s cage-by the time you return to discover your loss.

Cobb says sadly that pets in Dallas are “disposable items-when you’re tired of them, or you’re moving, or they didn’t behave like you thought they would, even though you never did anything to train them to be polite pels, you dump them and go get another one in a month or so.”

So who lives and who dies? The animals are evaluated for temperament and health. Selection is made with an eye for variety, to keep a wide range of sizes and types of dogs in the Morgan wing. Older dogs are not considered likely adoption candidates.

“It’s something that’s done at virtually every animal shelter in the country,” says Tom Hickey, manager of the animal control division. “It would be irresponsible not to offer some professional guidance and services to people. We would be doing a disservice to the animals in our care and to the general public if we did not provide such a prescreening process.”

No matter what we would like to believe, the statistics indicate there are few happy endings and tearful reunions at the city pound. In fiscal year 1987-88, the two Dallas shelter locations received 35,463 animals. Only 1,360 were adopted by new owners; 2,715 were reclaimed by their owners. More than 29,000 were euthanized.

While the public is not generally permitted to pick from the so-called “kill pens” at the shelters, a select few research assistants scan them almost every week. Ironically, they are looking for the same things anyone else might want in a pet-a healthy, friendly mutt. When they find them, they earmark the animals (mostly dogs) for biomedical purposes. They pay $35 per animal. In the last fiscal year, the Dallas shelters sold 1,618 dogs and cats for research and made $56,630 from the sales.

Staffers from the Baylor College of Dentistry also scan the kill pens six or eight times a year, looking for dogs that appear healthy and weigh between twenty and forty pounds. The college buys about 200 dogs annually, which are used for research and to train first- and second-year dental students.

“The first time the students cut tissue,” says Dr. Loy Frazier, “we don’t want them doing surgery on a human.” As in many of the Animal Resources Center surgeries, the “patients” are given fatal drug overdoses after their trips to the dentist.

Frazier can’t say enough about the contributions that dogs have made over the years to dental research. “They paved the way for better treatment of periodontal disease,” he says. “They helped us understand how fluoride works. And now, we’re using them to develop permanent implants that may someday replace false teeth.”

The scientists claim that if they are not allowed to pluck some of their $35 research subjects from the city pound, they will be forced to pay up to ten times that price to breeders for the laboratory-raised, “purpose-bred” dogs.

“We are the advocates for the animals,” argues Pakes of The Southwestern Medical Center. “Those dogs that come here have their lives extended for whatever time we have them, because they would already have been dead at the city shelter.”



VIRGINIA PREJEAN IS A FEISTY YET grandmotherly founding member of Animal Advocates Inc., a nonprofit group that has been active in Dallas since the mid-Seventies. She has been giving the Dallas City Council her own opinion on the subject of animal control for years. She owns six cats (“I can’t turn away a stray”) and doesn’t profess to be an animal expert, just an outspoken pet lover who believes that most citizens haven’t got a clue what goes on at either the SPCA or the city shelters.

In the Seventies, Prejean helped to successfully rally public opinion against the use of decompression chambers to kill unwanted dogs and cats by suffocation. Today, the cause is different but the verve is the same: Prejean feels that anyone who wants to adopt a pet at the city shelters should be allowed to see all the dogs, not just the two dozen housed in the Morgan wing.

“Every dog should have its day.” Prejean insists, “and Mrs. Morgan would turn over in her grave if she knew that her charitable bequest was being used in one wing of the building when in the other wing, animals were being sold and killed by the hundreds without even a chance of adoption.”

Prejean thinks the Morgan trust money, or other city funds, would be better spent setting up a low-cost spay-neuter clinic to be run by the city. She cites impressive statistics in places like Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia, where a combination of city spay-neuter programs and active pet adoption campaigns have resulted in far fewer animals being put to death-and none sold for research.

Prejean has harsh words for the only existing cut-rate spay-neuter program in Dallas, run by the SPCA. “Low-cost is a misnomer,” she laments. “In Los Angeles, you can have a male dog neutered for $17 and a female spayed for $20, and that includes rabies and distemper shots. At the Dallas SPCA. male dogs cost $25 to $35 to neuter, females $30 to $40 to spay, but first you have to take them to private veterinarians and pay an additional $20 to $40 for their shots.

“How many low-income people can afford that?” Prejean asks. “It’s cheaper to let them run wild. What if, years ago, the bookstores had said, ’We won’t put up with these free libraries?’ It’s the same kind of thing. That is the key that turns the lock.”

Although there is a host of animal rights groups in Texas, most people look to the largest organization, the SPCA, as the leading champion of animal welfare causes. The Dallas SPCA, which is run solely on charitable donations, is circulating petitions demanding an end to pound seizure, but sidesteps the larger issue of whether animals should be used at all in medical research.

“Selling to research undermines the whole idea of having a ’shelter,’ ” the Dallas SPCA’s Carol Cobb claims, “and I think it might even backfire on the city. When people see strays and realize what happens to them at the city pound, they won’t call Animal Control. They’ll just ignore them, or bring them to the SPCA.”

That is a real concern, since Cobb’s facility is often full. Compared to its city-run counterparts (or to The Southwestern Medical Center, for that matter), the SPCA’s numbers are infinitesimal. Last year, 5,962 dogs and cats were brought to the shelter; 3,050 were adopted into new homes. And even at the most “humane” option in town, 2,392 animals were euthanized.

If the shelter is full, people who call the SPCA with pets to bring in are put on a two-week waiting list until there is holding space. Pregnant, injured, and sick dogs or cats are temporarily farmed out to volunteer foster homes, which helps relieve the space crunch. “We have about one-sixth the space that the city has,” Carol Cobb explains, “but we try to be flexible.”

Flexibility makes for some very important policy differences. The SPCA holds stray animals for five days in hopes of reuniting them with their owners. At that point, if they are not claimed, they are available for adoption. And every cat and dog in the SPCA shelter is shown to the public for prospective adoption.

While Cobb may disagree with the way the city handles animal control issues, she is hesitant to criticize.

“I think the city shelters are doing the best they can with what they have, and it must be very frustrating,” she says. “What I’d really like to see is the city give Animal Control more priority as far as funding. It has been so far down on the priority list, and the problems are only getting worse. But I think what will probably pressure the City Council more than anything else is public opinion.”

Attorney David Park Smith, who represents Animal Advocates Inc.. takes Cobb’s criticism a step further. “I think the city has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world of animal control,” Smith says. “Like many other issues, animal control problems impact more directly on low-income neighborhoods, so city government is generally much less responsive to them.”

To spay or neuter, to experiment or euthanize-the issues are emotionally charged, and no one on the Dallas City Council has exhibited a willingness to spearhead the fight, one way or the other. The last time the question of pound seizure arose, in December 1988, council members Craig Holcomb, Al Lipscomb, and Charles Tandy opted to support the existing policy, while Lori Palmer, Diane Ragsdale, and Mayor Annette Strauss said they would “seek more information” before raising the subject again.

“It’s like the City Council is afraid of Southwestern Medical School,” Carol Cobb charges. “It’s like they’re thinking, ’If we vote this down, people will think Dallas is against progressive medicine, and no more research grant money will come in.’ “

But David Park Smith adds an even more important reason for council members to wade deeper into the whole animal rights melee. “The issue that has been most compelling to me is the simple economics of controlling the animal population,” Smith says. “To me, that transcends any of the emotional arguments. The fewer animals that are out there on the streets, the less expense the city has to incur to deal with the problem.

“There should be a concentrated effort on the part of the city to encourage responsible pet ownership. There is really a lot more to it than just whether or not we think furry little creatures ought to be cut up.”

OUR LADY OF THE KENNELS



DALLAS ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS HAVE AN UNUSUAL ALLY IN THEIR BATTLES-A WOMAN who has been dead for more than fifty years. Her name appears on a small plaque at the front entrance to the City of Dallas Animal Shelter on Forney Road. It reads: “Ivor O’Connor Home for Lost and Strayed Dogs.”

When Ivor Elizabeth O’Connor Morgan died in 1937 at the age of thirty-six, she willed that much of her money be used to “create a home in the city of Dallas, Dallas County, Texas, for lost and strayed dogs, to be maintained in a suitable manner by my said Trustee.” The will did not specify exactly how much money should be apportioned tor the cause, or for a second charity -a public hospital wing for tubercular children.

Ivor and two younger sisters grew up to attend a succession of prestigious schools in France and New York City. She visited Dallas often, since her tamer, a self-made millionaire, served as president of the pioneer City Bank of Dallas for twenty years. (It later became City National Bank, and then First National Bank.) When she was twelve years old, Ivor’s lather died and she inherited much of the properly.

She grew up to marry and divorce twice. Her first husband was Dallas banker Rembert M. Treze-vam; her second. Harry Hayes Morgan of the famous New York banking family. Today, Ivor’s estate is still handled by her late father’s bank, now called NCNB Texas.

For some twenty-two years, the banks apparently did little hut pocket their annual fees for overseeing the trust. Finally, in 1957. the lost and strayed bankers authorized spending the money for the first Ivor O’Connor Morgan Home on Exposition Street in Fair Park. Somehow, people found out about it and deposited unwanted pets there. But in the Seventies, heart-wrenching stories of neglect and cruelty began dotting the local newspapers. Mariana Greene of the Dallas Times Herald wrote in 1975: “Sixteen dogs, their muzzles gray with age and their eyes crazed from prolonged imprisonment, are captives of a cruelly twisted humanitarian pledge.”

The negative publicity spurred the bank (then First National Bank) into proposing a different setup. The Morgan money would be given to the City of Dallas Animal Shelter, to build and maintain a wing for adoptable pets. The agreement, oddly enough, specifically excludes spending any money for spaying or neutering animals. The city received $150,000 to build the wing and now gets a modest annual upkeep fee ($33,658 in 1987).

Morgan gave her trustee (the bank) “final and determinative” power to decide how much is spent, and when. It is important to note that only the trust income is apportioned out to those charitable causes. The “corpus” (original body) of the trust remains untouched, and has grown in value from $820,446 in 1937 to more than $3.3 million today.

So it would seem that NCNB Texas has a built-in moneymaker in the Morgan trust. Trust officer Dan Kelly keeps labs on expenditures, doling out a bit more money now and then for any small special requests. (The shelter received an additional $10,000, for instance, to hire a dog groomer to keep the Morgan wing charges looking nice tor prospective new owners.)

With no living heirs to stake their claims or question the judgment of the trustee, things might go on as usual as long as the money lasts. But under Texas law. charitable trusts are supposed to be operated “for the public good,” and that gives a toehold to the nonprofit group Animal Advocates Inc. to challenge the interpretation of the Morgan will. The group thinks some of the money would be better used to spay and neuter adaptable pets According to their attorney, the group is not ruling out a lawsuit if the agreement is not voluntarily reinterpreted.

As for Ivor O’Connor Morgan, she probably would never have dreamed that animal welfare could be so political, so potentially explosive. What would she have wanted-today?

“1 think about that all the time.” says Dan Kelly. “It would have been so much belter if she had really defined what she meant.”

Joe Bowles, director of Public Affairs tor NCNB Texas, thinks he knows what she did not want: “Mrs. Morgan did not require us to provide a home for every dog in the City of Dallas, or to see that every dog at the shelter is available for adoption. I don’t want to sound callous, but this subject comes up about every two years, and the bank gets a black eye from it. I suppose we’ll be getting another one now.”

Mrs. Morgan probably did not intend that, either. -C.T.