A Dog's Life

The Brown Dog Affair began in 1903, when it was alleged that a terrier had been illegally dissected before an audience of medical students at University College London. The audience had been infiltrated by animal-rights campaigners who claimed the dog was conscious & struggling during the proceedure.
Anti-vivisectionists erected a statue of the dog in Battersea Park in 1906, but medical students were angered by its provocative plaque asking "Men & Women of England, how long shall these things be?". The statue required police protection from vandalism by so-called "anti-doggers" (a term that's meaning has changed a little since!).
In 1907 1000 anti-doggers held a march through London which ended in clashes with suffragettes, trades unionists & 400 police in Trafalgar Square, which became known as the Brown Dog Riots.
In 1910, fed up with both the controversy & unwilling to foot the bill for it's protection, Battersea Council removed the statue under cover of darkness.
75 years later this new statue, by Nicola Hicks, was commisioned, again by anti-vivisectionists & erected in the park. It's plaque repeats the original inscription & adds that "In 1903 19,084 animals suffered & died in British laboritories. During 1984 3,497,355 animals were burned, blinded, irradiated, poisoned & subject to countless other horrifyingly cruel experiments in Great Britain."
As an animal lover my default setting is to oppose vivisection. But few, if any, of us have not benefited from medicines tested on animals. It's a thorny one, isn't it?
(Read more about the Brown Dog Affair & see the original statue here.)