Mars Veterinary Dog DNA Test Kit

Mars Veterinary is a division of Mars Incorporated, the maker of Milky Way, M&M's, Twix, Skittles and Snickers. Mars is also in the commercial pet food business, producing brands such as Whiskas and Pedigree. Now Mars Veterinary has introduced a convenient dog DNA test kit, that is inexpensive and simple to use. With this particular DNA test, a veterinarian is not required. You simply order the kit, swab your dog's mouth for saliva, and send it back in the pre-paid envelope. Within three weeks, you'll receive a detailed report showing your dog's ancestry. Sounds great, right?

While the Mars dog DNA kit would be fun, after further research, I'm going to have to pass. Mars Incorporated owns Symbioscience as well, a division of Mars that conducts unnecessary animal experiments. These animal experiments have been related to chocolate consumption, and conducted on mice, rats, and rabbits. These experiments are not required by law, in fact they are almost unheard of in the food manufacturing industry. The experiments supported include injecting cocoa ingredients into the jugular veins of guinea pigs' to evaluate effects on blood pressure, force tube feeding rats chocolate ingredients and then dissecting, and force feeding rabbits high cholesterol-high cocoa diets and then dissecting muscle tissue.

This is ridiculous, do we really need to torture animals for chocolate?

I've read complaints as well that allege Mars Incorporated has not been completely upfront, though I'm unable to confirm this as fact. Animal activists have claimed that Mars was saying they do no animal research, even when they were shown to be supporting these experiments. These experiments first and foremost have caused needless suffering for many animals, and are not required or even encouraged by laws or regulation. While the dog DNA test kit is an interesting product, I'll look elsewhere for the above mentioned reasons. Does anyone know if Hershey's makes a dog DNA kit?