Check out today’s must read piece from WCW‘s co-founding Director, Julie Germany. For the first time, Julie is telling the story of Violet the coonhound.

As you can read at PawsGo, Violet’s transition from taxpayer-funded experiment to family pet hasn’t been easy:

The U.S. government spends more than $12 billion in taxpayer funding each year for experimentation on dogs, cats, and many other animals like Violet…. Because her experimenters locked her in a cage for too long, she couldn’t learn house training like a “normal dog.” Now she needs to wear a diaper — just one instance of her post-lab trauma.

And this:

Like the rest of her lab mates, Violet was born and bred for animal experimentation. At taxpayer expense, she spent her early life as one of tens of thousands of puppies in government-funded experimentation labs across the country.

Money quote:

Before I met Violet, I was already very aware of the real cost of the animal experimentation industry — the cruelty, waste, fraud, and abuse. I am a co-founding Director of an innovative nonprofit advocacy group called White Coat Waste (whitecoatwaste.org) that is working to stop wasteful government spending that funds the majority of all animal experimentation.

To read more of Violet’s story from WCW co-founder and Director, Julie Germany at PawsGo please follow this link.