Teacher Dissects a Live Dog

13 Responses

1. girl least likely to

   13|May|2005 1

   good god. this is the kind of thing i read and just get instantly furious. i can’t even think straight.

2. vegenaise

   14|May|2005 2

   that’s just plain sick. I get so mad over this kind of thing that I can barely see straight. At the U. where I work, introductory classes train rats to go through mazes, and then at the end of the semester, the rats are rewarded with death for their efforts. Similarly, we have faculty that do lovely things like cut nipples off of rats to see if the rats will reject their young (!) and inventive scientific shit like that.

   I actually think that some of this stuff done in the name of “science” is just an excuse for people to express their sick and twisted desires to inflict harm on other living things. And believe me, if you know any academics, I guarantee you some subset of them heartily enjoys such activities.

3. Bojangles

   14|May|2005 3

   That is wrong one so many levels. I myself am currently dealing with dissection. It’s awful, but I feel so alone when I don’t want to cut up animals. My lab partner thinks I’m ridiculous. We’ve already dissected a starfish, a fish, and a frog. The whole time I wouldn’t help my partner, I couldn’t. I just watched in horror. I actually had to help cut the fish because my partner’s hand got tired, because it was so hard to cut. I got fed up when it came to the frog and I told the teacher I didn’t want to dissect. She misinterpreted it as me feeling squeamish, so she said I only had to watch. Hooray. It’s very hard being a quiet vegan in Biology during dissection week.

   I just visited the anti-PETA website featured in your side-blog. I know that PETA has done some radical stuff, but nothing too awful. They feel really passionate about animal rights and it’s great to see someone standing up and doing something. Basically all these conservative corporates are either afraid to say something or like money too much. Or both.

   I wrote them an angry letter on their “contact us” page. Here it is:

   “You, my friend, are a dirty liar. You are obiviously friends of the fast food industry. Maybe if you make up enough garbage about legitimate organizations like PETA, you’ll make some more money for the corporate idols that you worship.

   Stop putting pesticides on my vegetables, fat into the bodies of my friends and family, lies into the minds of good citizens, and chemicals in the tampons I use.

   I’ll make sure to let you know when I get cervical cancer.

   -a very opinionated 15-year old Irish-American Girl”

   I suggest the rest of you do the same. Maybe it will prompt them to write an article about “RADICAL RABID VEGAN SATANISTS OUT TO KILL US ALL!” or something ridiculous and hilarious like that.

   I’m vegan and also a member of the PETA2 street team. Teenagers are stereotyped as idiotic and vulnerable to any new idea on the market. The real deal is, I’m more mature than most adults.

   I’m outie, veganism rocks

4. Meredith

   16|May|2005 4

   Oh my god. *shudder*

   I was fortunate in that I could decline to dissect in high school. The teacher was angry with me about it, but that was school policy. I was given bookwork instead.

5. Denise

   17|May|2005 5

   Horrible, absolutely horrible. In some states, this is considered cruelty to animals and is a misdemeanor.

6. Gary

   17|May|2005 6

   Two comments:

   It would be a better experience for the students to see compassion in action.

   The question is not whether the dog will eventually die. The question is: will the dog thrive or suffer as a result of the teacher’s actions?

   Gary

7. Cathi

   18|May|2005 7

   As horrible as this is…and I also was shocked that something like this was done in front of high school students…I can’t help thinking that it might make some of them think about how animals are treated in other areas, behind closed doors. After all, what are we really objecting to, that the dog was maimed and cut open while alive–which is done all the time to aniamls raised to be food–or just that the students had to ’see’ it?

   I do find this shocking. Thanks for posting and letting more people know.

8. aardvarknav

   19|May|2005 8

   How is showing a videotape of a live dog being dissected any better than dissecting a live dog? The harm to the dog is still there, but the “educational” benefits are diminished in several ways. In today’s world we have the computational power, the complex simulation and modeling applications, and advanced display systems (ranging from high definition digital displays to immersive visualization systems) to create a situation where we don’t harm animals but do gain signficant educational benefits. We also have advanced magnetic resonance imaging and similar systems that can create highly detailed, 3D images without using invasive procedures that adversely affect the person or animal being scanned. Why aren’t we doing this more? The first answer is always money, but that is a smokescreen. We’ve dumbed down our education training schools and de-emphasixed science for our teachers and we’ve failed to build good industry-education relationships. At the high school level, we tend to hire teachers who can coach first and teach second. The result is situations like this.

9. Ryan

   19|May|2005 9

   How is showing a videotape of a live dog being dissected any better than dissecting a live dog?

   Presumably, they’d use a videotape recorded during an actual, necessary operation (not just a video of another dissection).

   I agree with your other points, though. Clearly technology will end up being the solution to this problem, I was just presenting one cheap answer to this particular case.

10. aardvarknav

    19|May|2005 10

    I did a quick google check after my posting my comment to see what already exists for modeling dogs. The Europeans have a plastic dog model similar to the Visible Man/Woman kits. But more importantly, TNO, a Dutch research organization,
    has already developed a dog model called FIDO or Functional gastro-Intestinal DogmOdel as a research tool to determine if dogs are getting a well-balanced diet.. It simulates the digestive processes occurring in the stomach and small intestine. It is fully computer controlled and simulates what happens in the dog’s gastro-intestinal tract to include mimicking the peristaltic motions of the dog’s stomach wall, secretion of acid and other enzymes, the action of the pylorus which separates the stomach form the small intestine. It can simluate the motions of the small intestine , the absorption of digested food, and re-absorbstion of water from the intestinal tract. Sounds like someone like PETA ought to work with TNO to develop and provide the modeling for educational purposes.

11. Suebob

    21|May|2005 11

    That is freaking disgusting. I would have lost it in more ways than one. I think I would have thrown myself bodily up there between doctor death and the dog.

    I skipped out on a week of physiology classes in high school because they were dissecting fetal pigs. I just walked out and didn’t come back until it was over and my teacher never marked me down.

12. Bastian

    19|Jun|2005 12

    They could make a video without ever cutting a dog nowadays - we have plenty of non-invasive medical imaging technology that could give a great view of a working digestive tract. There are now ultrasound machines so sensitive that they can show tiny detail and even show you which way blood is flowing in veins and arteries.

    With technology like this, it would be so easy to create a video that gives a far better picture of what is happening inside a living organism, on human volunteers no less. In this day and age, high school dissection class is nothing more than a perfect example of wanton disrespect for life, and is no more educationally defensible than trying to claim that a cadaver dissection is necessary for kids to learn about their own bodies in health class.

13. Doug Cortese

    01|Nov|2007 13

    I work for Anatomyinclay.com and we create resin skeleton models of dogs and you build the anatomy in clay and attach it to the model. Check us out and see the dog video.

    http://www.anatomyinclay.com/videos