Animal rights activists say they will descend on a Garden Grove clinic at high noon today to protest former racing dogs being held “captive” there so their blood can be sold.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals say they will bring along “canine companions” to Hemopet, 11561 Salinaz Dr. (near the intersection of Salinaz and Newhope Street in Garden Grove).
Hemopet describes itself as a full-service facility consisting of an animal blood bank, greyhound rescue and adoption, and specialty veterinary diagnostic laboratory.
Officials there could not be reached for comment about the planned PETA protest.
The animal rights group claims Hemopet houses about 200 greyhounds, “most, if not all, of whom were discarded by the racing industry,” and that it is a “sham ‘rescue’ facility,” something the activists claim was discovered when one of their own volunteered at the location and produced a “damning … eyewitness exposé.”
That is claimed to have revealed “dogs there were caged in loud, cramped, stressful conditions for up to 23 hours a day. They were bled every 10 to 14 days for up to 18 months—sometimes even longer—and the frequent bleedings left many of their necks bruised and bloody.”
PETA produced this video:
Her group claims that Hemopet’s founder, veterinarian Jean Dodds, “once worked on an experiment in which cobra venom was injected into guinea pigs’ body cavities,” and that her registered nonprofit organization collected more than $1 million in blood-product sales in 2016.
“PETA is calling on Hemopet to send these traumatized, exploited dogs to loving adoptive homes, where they’ll get to enjoy being dogs at long last,” says Nachminovitch.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
this place is definitely still doing bad things and experiments on dogs of all kinds I don’t even know if Greyhounds are there anymore I’ve heard from locals that there’s groups of German shepherds some days and tons of pitbulls other days and they can hear them screaming horrifically super late around 2:00 3:00 in the morning sounds like they’re all being tortured something needs to be done this is the creepiest most not cool place around and it is very disturbing for someone like me who is a resident and I beg for an investigation to be done here immediately
by the way that jean dodds hasn’t had a veterinary license in over 30 years and never here in CA