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How To Tell If Your Pet Was A Research Subject

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) — Beagles are used in animal research because they are gentle, forgiving and people-pleasing.

It's something that weighed on the mind of one of our viewers after her dog had to be put down because of rampant cancer, so we went looking for answers.

Shannon Keith with The Beagle Freedom Project walked us through how to tell if your animal was rescued from a lab.

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She showed us Rocky, who was rescued from a lab.

"We would just flip his ear over and see does he have a tattoo," she said.

This faint tattoo shows Rocky was a research animal.

Inside, you can faintly see his identification number. Another giveaway is if it's missing its vocal cords.

"If you have a dog that cannot make a sound, that dog is typically from a laboratory," she said.

A microchip can also reveal your pet's past (and yes, it works on dogs, too).

It also may have a microchip that traces it back to a lab.

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