It’s the nightmare of pet lovers everywhere.

Fido or Whiskers gets lost, is scooped up by animal thieves, then sold to be dissected in a university research lab.

The Humane Society of the United States estimates that every year middlemen known as “Class B” animal dealers round up about 18,000 dogs and cats through flea markets and free-to-good-home ads and sell them to laboratories and university research labs.
In the process, it says, lost pets are rounded up, too.

Now that Congress has undergone a change in leadership, the animal advocacy group hopes lawmakers will make it illegal for “Class B” dealers to sell “random source” cats and dogs to research labs.