Double Trouble was a gentle tabby cat who was mutilated and eventually killed after months of pain, suffering, and neglect by experimenters at UW-Madison.
Double Trouble was not unlike the cat you might share your home with, who snuggles with you at night, loves to give kisses, and enjoys sunshine, attention, and love. UW treated Double Trouble like nothing but a test tube, drilling holes into her skull, screwing a metal post to her head, and applying toxic chemicals to her ears in order to deafen her. She developed infections and became depressed, and half her face was paralyzed. Eventually, experimenters labeled Double Trouble's experiment a failure, and they killed and decapitated her.It's not just Double Trouble who has been mutilated by UW. Other cats used in these UW experiments have even had their ears cut off. Experimenters justify the use of 30 cats like Double Trouble per year in this cruel project, not to save human lives but so that they can "keep up a productive publication record that ensures our constant funding." The federal government continues to support this irrelevant and deadly project and has provided UW with more than $3 million in grant money to abuse cats even though researchers at other institutions around the world are already using modern methods with human volunteers to investigate how the brain locates and processes sound.