Free How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain by Gregory Berns Page A

for cancer may have terrible side effects, but if it has the potential to save the subject’s life, then the benefits might outweigh the risks. Finally, there is the principle of justice, or fairness, which means that scientists cannot use just poor people for research, because this would unfairly take advantage of their need to make money by renting their bodies for medical research.
    While it has taken decades to work out how these principles are applied in practice for humans, the situation is entirely different with animals. The law does not recognize animals as having the same rights as humans. Legally, animals are considered property. This means that researchers can, within limits, do whatever they want with them. Usually, this means the death of the animal.
    As bad as that sounds, the care of laboratory animals is highly regulated by the Department of Agriculture. The Animal Welfare Act, signed into law in 1966, specifies how animals used in researchshould be treated. Periodically updated, the text of the law is a mind-boggling list of rules that describes everything from cage requirements to veterinary care to methods of euthanasia.
    The act requires any entity that performs research on animals, such as a university, to establish a committee to review and approve research protocols. This committee is called the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, or IACUC. The acronym is usually pronounced
eye-a-kuk
.
    Let’s say I wanted to conduct some behavioral research on Callie at home, like figuring out the best method to get her to come when called. As long as I didn’t violate any animal cruelty laws, I could do whatever I wanted. Use a long leash? Fine. Try an ultrasonic whistle? Check. Use an electronic shock collar? Still okay. I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission to do any of this.
    But if I asked the same question in an academic setting, like the university, it would fall under the legal jurisdiction of the Animal Welfare Act. If I wanted to write an academic paper on which dog biscuit was most effective for training, I would still need to get IACUC approval. The main difference between doing research at home and at the university is that the university is considered a “research facility” that receives money from the federal government. As part of the deal for receiving federal funds, the university must abide by all federal rules and regulations. One big part is compliance with the Animal Welfare Act. (The other is compliance with human research regulations like the ones established in
The Belmont Report
.)
    Although I was accustomed to navigating the maze of human research rules, I had had no experience with the animal rules. Surprisingly, the rules of animal research were a lot more complicated. Unlike humans, animals have no choice in whether they want to participate in research. So while a human can theoretically judge therisks and benefits and make an informed decision, animals cannot. As a result, the rules around animal research acknowledge that their lives will be awful and limit as much as is practical the pain and suffering they must endure.
    None of this seemed terribly relevant to the Dog Project. After all, the dogs were going to be people’s pets. They weren’t going to be housed at the university. The plan was for the owners to train their dogs at home and, when they were ready, bring them in for an MRI scan. Andrew and I figured this should be pretty simple. We wrote a document describing our plan for the experiment. This document spelled out the research protocol. It contained everything from how we would select the subjects, to how we would train them, to how we would protect their hearing during the scans. It even included a consent form (for the owner, not the dog).
    We sent the protocol document to the IACUC and waited for a response.
    Two weeks later, I received a phone call from a university lawyer.
    “We have a jurisdiction problem with your protocol.”
    Trying not to get