Frequently Asked Questions

For nearly 10 months, PETA conducted an undercover investigation in an Iams contract laboratory. What our investigator witnessed and captured on hidden camera would outrage any animal lover: dogs who had gone crazy from being confined to barren steel-and-cement cells, dogs who had been left on a paint-chipped floor after having their vocal chords severed and part of their leg muscles hacked out, dogs who were sweltering in scorching heat and shivering in bitter cold, and horribly sick dogs and cats languishing in their cages, neglected and left to suffer without veterinary care. The animals in Iams’ tests are no different from our dogs and cats at home when it comes to deserving companionship, play, a stimulating environment, and the right not to be tormented in painful experiments.

We are calling on Iams to rely on non-animal, laboratory analysis and in-home tests that use dogs and cats who have been volunteered by their human companions. Right now, animals are suffering endlessly in concrete cells with no exercise or stimulation just so that Iams can slap new claims onto its products and maintain its market share. It’s all about marketing. If Iams officials cared about the health and happiness of our companion animals, they would end this unnecessary testing immediately. They’ve proved that all they care about is profit.

Iams repeatedly lied to PETA by promising to improve living conditions for the dogs in its contract labs. Our investigation took place more than a year after Iams promised to “raise the bar” on animal-welfare standards in its contract facilities and even assured us that enrichment programs were already in place, but our investigator knew better. At least 27 dogs were killed, and others had illnesses that were left untreated despite the Iams research policy’s assurances, which specifically state that no animal will ever be deliberately killed in an Iams test.

Our video footage shows Iams representatives touring the facility and witnessing dogs’ endlessly circling in barren cells in the sweltering heat. Iams officials knew the truth, yet they lied. How can they be trusted to act in animals’ best interests at this point? Our investigator fought for six months to have a single cheap, rubber toy placed in each dog’s cell. This is Iams’ idea of “enrichment.” Once animal lovers become aware that they are financing the confinement and mutilation of animals, they simply won’t buy Iams food or propaganda.

After considerable pressure from PETA, Iams finally agreed to have the dogs from this particular laboratory removed. We’ve been informed by Iams officials that the dogs are now in an Iams facility in Dayton, which they have refused to let us see. We have no idea whether the dogs are in a better situation now than they were before. We are continuing to press Iams to let us see the facility and urging the company to adopt the dogs out to loving homes, but until we have a confirmation from Iams that this has happened, we will assume otherwise.

Videotape doesn’t lie. See the abuse for yourself here. Procter & Gamble, Iams’ parent company, has a long history of cruelty to animals. After years of pressure to eliminate cruel product testing on animals, the company continues to torture rabbits, ferrets, and many other animals in its skin- and eye-irritancy experiments for cosmetics. P&G spends more money on advertising in five days than it has spent on developing alternatives to animal testing in the last 14 years. That’s a bad record for a company that claims to care about animals.

Iams claims to be a leader in the pet food industry. We’re asking the company to act like one. As a major food producer, its pioneering choice to end laboratory testing on animals would serve as an example of progress in the industry and would begin a truly “new and improved” era in pet food, not just a minor change at the animals’ expense.

For a list of forward-thinking companion-animal food companies that have stopped or never conducted tests on animals in laboratories click here.

Animal testing has never been a necessary, safe, or effective way to conduct medical research. Iams tests are particularly outrageous because animals in these tests are confined to barren steel-and-cement cells and forced to undergo invasive surgery just to test dog and cat food.

Animal lovers wouldn’t sacrifice their own animal companions’ welfare to benefit other animals, and they don’t want to subject animals just like theirs to cruel and unnecessary experimentation. We’re talking about dog and cat food here. The truth is that this continued experimentation is about nothing more than Iams’ pocketbook.

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