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At Duke, dogs play puzzle games to reveal how their minds work. At UNC-Chapel Hill, a colony of dogs is bred to carry bleeding disorders and test medicine that could save lives. NC State uses dogs to train students in its veterinary program.
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More than 270 dogs are used for research purposes at major research universities in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area, according to animal research reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 2025 reviewed by The News & Observer.
Seventy percent of those dogs are at UNC-Chapel Hill. Researchers there maintain and perform tests on a decades-old breeding colony of dogs with inherited blood disorders.
After the USDA visited UNC-Chapel Hill in July, the agency observed “noncompliance involving lack of guidance on reporting deficiencies in animal care and treatment.” An anonymous complaint to the school’s animal care committee alleged that a technician had handled a dog by its scruff, pulled a dog on a leash, and used a foot to move a dog. The technician involved, according to the report, had already been counseled, trained, and disciplined beforehand. The USDA cited UNC for failing to train personnel on how to report problems.
Although the dogs did not suffer any injuries, the technician involved was “ultimately assigned to a position not working with dogs,” according to the USDA.
In its routine annual reports, the USDA breaks down the number of animals at a research university based on whether they’re involved in experiments that cause them pain. The most recent of these annual reports for Triangle universities is from November 2025.
One category is for animals used in experiments, research, surgery, or tests that cause pain or distress but which universities say are appropriately anesthetized or tranquilized. Another is for animals used in experiments that universities say don’t cause pain. There’s a third for animals bred, conditioned, or held for research but which haven’t yet been used for those purposes.
None of the Triangle’s research universities reported any animals in painful or distressing experiments that weren’t given appropriate anesthetic, analgesic, or tranquilizing drugs. The reports don’t include rats, mice and birds bred for research.
Animals used in UNC research
Here’s the breakdown of animals used in research at UNC-Chapel Hill from the USDA’s 2025 report.
In painless research:
- 20 dogs
- 11 pigs
- 45 rabbits
In research that involved pain managed by drugs:
- 170 dogs
- 30 hamsters
- 24 rabbits
- 6 non-human primates
- 21 pigs
- 4 ferrets
- 99 eastern deer mice
At UNC, the Francis Owen Blood Research Laboratory — founded in 1947 — breeds dogs with inherited bleeding disorders that are used as models for human disease. The dogs have hemophilia A and B, Willebrand disease, Glanzmann’s thrombasthenia, and other deficiencies. The lab also keeps normal dogs for a control group.
The dogs at UNC — referred to in the lab description as “bleeder dogs” — were judged in 1999 to be an “important national resource that should be made available to the research community,” according to the university’s description of the lab. Recently, human gene therapies were tested on the dogs before going to clinical trials.
“The primary benefits of these animals have been to accelerate translatable discovery science in coagulation and hemostasis research and to produce the scientific basis for the safe and efficacious introduction of novel therapeutics into clinical practice,” the lab’s description reads. “… To our knowledge, the [lab] is the only such breeding colony in the USA; the only other is in Canada and has hemophilia A dogs alone.”
A spokesperson for UNC-Chapel Hill told The N&O that the dogs used for research “live near-normal, high-quality lives where they receive daily affection, play, enrichment and exercise.”
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The school “is committed to humanely caring for and treating animals that researchers rely on in their search to cure and treat diseases. Our dogs receive ongoing medical care around the clock by a team of dedicated veterinarians, researchers, and staff, as well as treatments available nowhere else,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Animals have unique and important roles in research. Many medical advances that enhance the lives of humans are developed from carefully planned and highly regulated research studies with animals. At Carolina, this work has led to groundbreaking discoveries in hemophilia and other similar blood disorders that have saved thousands of lives.”
Animals used in NC State research
In 2025, NC State did painless research on:
- 8 dogs
- 33 cats
- 29 rabbits
- 359 pigs
- 53 horses
- 178 cows
- 86 goats
- 314 prairie voles
In research that involved pain managed by drugs:
- 51 dogs
- 5 cats
- 24 guinea pigs
- 57 rabbits
- 16 sheep
- 139 pigs
- 50 horses
- 253 prairie voles
NC State says its “teaching dogs” are used to help students learning to become veterinarians. The students perform eye exams, vaccinations, and teeth cleanings on dogs, and learn how to handle them safely.
After two years in the teaching program — during which they receive specialized care, proper housing, and regular enrichment, according to NC State — they are made available for adoption into permanent homes. The school said that “humane, ethical and safe treatment of every animal in our care is our highest priority.”
Other dogs are used in “clinical trials that advance veterinary medicine and contribute to medical discoveries. That work is central to our mission as a research university, and we treat the animals involved with respect, care and compassion.”
NC State veterinary scientists have studied medicine that could help dogs’ joint health, aging, dementia, kidney disease, dermatitis, and disc herniation. In cats, they’ve worked on clinical trials for kidney disease, heart health, the effects of different feeding practices, and cancer. For horses, they’ve studied melanoma treatments, endocrine diseases, pneumonia therapies, and eyelid cancer.
“All research and teaching involving animals is overseen by the Program of Animal Welfare and Science (PAWS) and our Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which ensure compliance with federal regulations and ethical standards. Every project undergoes veterinary review, and everyone who works with animals must complete species-specific training first,” the school said in a statement provided to The N&O.
Animals used in Duke research
At Duke, here’s the breakdown from the USDA in 2025. In painless research:
- 10 dogs
- 4 hamsters
- 262 rabbits
- 41 non-human primates
- 24 song sparrows, 105 chipping sparrows, 45 house finches, 88 western bluebirds, 27 gray flycatchers, 22 mountain bluebirds, 112 ash-throated flycatchers
- 5 white-footed mice
- 6 bottlenose dolphins
- 3 beluga whales
In research that involved pain managed by drugs:
- 13 dogs
- 246 rabbits
- 167 non-human primates
- 203 pigs
- 121 ferrets
- 6 northern tree shrews
Duke did not respond to a request for comment, but according to its website, the school operates a Canine Cognition Center. When the center was founded in 2009, it was the first of its kind on a college campus.
“Our goal is to understand the flexibility and limitations of dog cognition and how it compares to other animals, including our closest living relatives, the great apes,” reads Duke’s description of its center. “Doing so can help us understand how our own minds evolved, since over the past decade, we have found that dog and human minds converge in astounding ways.”
You can even enroll your own dog to participate in studies at Duke. Participants are chosen based on research project requirements, and testing sessions last between 45 and 90 minutes.
A reporter for the New York Times recently took his dog to Duke for tests, and wrote that his main takeaway was “the limits, even uselessness, of the blanket assessments ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent.’”
This story was originally published October 12, 2026 at 1:19 PM with the headline “North Carolina university breeds dogs with bleeding disorders to test medicine.”
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