Lots of people think that shelter animals that aren’t adopted are euthanized or if they’re in a no-kill shelter, they remain their for their rest of their lives. News is this may not always be true.

Five U.S. states require shelters to send un-adopted animals to research facilities. So if those homeless kitties or doggies aren’t adopted in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah, they’re sent to research facilities where they’re often subjected to all sorts of tests. In Iowa and Ohio, un-adopted animals are shipped off only if a research facility makes a request.

Thirty other states are also guilty of either permitting shelters to surrender animals for research under certain circumstances, or have no laws concerning the matter, meaning shelters can make the decision on their own.

Aside from the lab work itself, money is the driving force. Utah has an "experimental animals code" that permits shelters to charge researchers a minimum of:

• $15 per cat
• $20 per dog

Sadly, many shelter animals are killed, whether they wind up in research facilities or not, but don’t they deserve to die without prolonged suffering?