Dogs are man's best friend and a new study is proving that Dogs have played an important part in medical research over the last century including the use of insulin to treat diabetes, the development of open-heart surgery and the discovery of anti-rejection drugs for organ transplants. Here, we see beagles in research into the treatment of heart disease. The dogs are exercised daily and given a rich environment with plenty of toys to chew and people to play with and just like the 8 million pet dogs in the UK, dogs that are used in research and testing, benefit from a good diet and rewards based training. The dogs are trained to leave their pens and to jump onto weighing scales. Here, the dogs are being gently restraint in a harness so that its heart function could be measured.
The scientist is using an ultrasound scanner very much like used to scan the developing fetus in a pregnant woman. Some people still think that animals are used to test cosmetics but it has been illegal to test cosmetics on animals in the UK for many years.