Mostly Hairless Cat and Lame Dog Sad Examples of Abuse in Oklahoma Laboratory: National Watchdog Calls Lab ‘One of the Nation’s Worst’
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Contact:

Dr. Robert Gibbens
Director, Western Region, USDA
[email protected] 
[email protected]

Please levy the MAXIMUM FINE against Riner & Associates for their blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act when their negligence allowed multiple dogs and cats to suffer with hair loss, skin lesions, lameness, etc. Their behavior should NOT be tolerated and MUST be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Mostly Hairless Cat and Lame Dog Sad Examples of Abuse in Oklahoma Laboratory: National Watchdog Calls Lab ‘One of the Nation’s Worst’

From AnimalsVoice.com, July 28, 2020

TULSA/NOWATA, OK – A national research watchdog is releasing federal records that reveal Nowata’s Riner & Associates to be one of our nation’s worst laboratories – the group released federal inspection records showing a lame dog, a virtually hairless cat, and tumbledown wooden structures with protruding nails.

“Laboratories usually deal in surgical procedure rooms and in-depth veterinary records, but Riner & Associates looks like a rundown backyard puppy mill,” said Michael A. Budkie, A.H.T. a co-founder of SAEN, a watchdog group that investigates U.S. research facilities for illegal activities and animal abuse.

“If Riner & Associates cannot provide adequate veterinary care, animals should be removed for their own safety. If a private citizen in Oklahoma denied animals veterinary care like this they would go to jail. I have been in advocacy work for over three decades and I have never seen a laboratory look like this,” added Budkie.

Sophie, a cat imprisoned at Riner & Associates, has been denied veterinary care for at least 11 months, said SAEN, a national watchdog nonprofit that investigates animal abuse and illegal activities at U.S. research facilities.

Sophie, who was first mentioned in a USDA inspection dated April 11, 2019 with hair loss, had deteriorated to a 75 percent hair loss with skin lesions by March of this year, as is documented in multiple photos.

A beagle named Glen is listed with inflamed lesions, and a second beagle is described as lame, both of which are documented in video clips.

SAEN’s federal complaint against Riner & Associates for the negligence that denied these animals veterinary care, and broke federal laws calls for the maximum penalty of $10,000 per infraction/per animal. 

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