Could Your Pet Have Been Stolen?

People who believe that their pets are stolen and sold for lab research are often animal rights groups opposed to using animals in research. Their intent may be to scare pet owners into supporting their cause, which is to end all research work on animals. Pet theft likely does occur, but not to the degree that everyone thinks. 

Pet owners who believe their pet was stolen and sold to a research lab often don’t search the likely locations where their lost pet might really be. These locations include local shelters, under a neighbor’s deck, or up for adoption at an adoption event at a local pet store.

Believing that a pet has been stolen is a common tunnel-vision theory. Research indicates that in most missing pet cases theft is not very likely. This myth of stolen pets has many people buying into it. It’s a belief perpetuated on the internet and by a few animal welfare organizations that hoards of dogs and cats are stolen every year and sold to research facilities for experiments. The truth is that most animals used in research are provided by dealers who breed them specifically for that purpose. 

The process of selling animals to research could certainly result in unclaimed animals ending up in labs. But there is a misconception that dealers are lurking around neighborhoods looking to snatch animals from their yards in order to sell them to research. 

More lost animals were killed every year by the behavior of owners who believed their pet was stolen for research than were ever actually killed in this way. That’s because many of the pet owners stopped searching believing their pet ended up as an experiment. They stopped aggressively searching in areas where they should be looking. Basically, whatever a pet owner believes has happened to their pet will influence how well they’ll search and how successful they’ll be.