Daphne lived alone in
a small plastic "shoebox" cage, one of 100 in a rack, in a laboratory.
Soon after she arrived at the laboratory, a person in a white coat
plucked her from her cage and, roughly holding her down on the table,
brought a huge pair of clippers towards her front feet and snipped off a
toe. Daphne was reeling from the shock when the clippers shifted and
snapped off a second toe. For a second she lost consciousness, but not
long enough to block out the pain or the shock of seeing her own blood
flow from her mutilated foot.
A laboratory worker was showing new staff member
Betsy Swart the row of shoebox cages, pointing to the mice's feet where
toes were missing, and explaining casually, "We do this for
identification. There's a chart on the wall showing what toes were cut
for the test. This one will be used in a dermal toxic reaction test for
a shampoo ingredient. "Betsy nodded numbly as she looked at the
mouse. As the other worker moved on, Betsy noticed that the mouse was
rising on her hind legs, her front paws reaching for the top of the cage
at the front. Betsy paused, but seeing her colleague surging ahead,
hurried to catch up.
Daphne twitched where the fur had been shaved off
her back. She could not understand why she had lost part of her coat,
and why her back was stinging. Sometimes, having nowhere to run, but
wanting to move around to cool off the hurt on her back, she ran circles
in her tiny cage, limping painfully on her maimed foot.Every time a
white-coated person entered the hall,she would stretch up on her hind
legs and stick her nose up in the air.but only Betsy ever stopped to
acknowledge her.
Betsy had been working at the laboratory for two
months.Fortunately, no one had discovered that she was collecting
evidence of cruelty; she would soon leave and expose the laboratory
abuses.Many nights at home, she cried thinking about the mice.Most
seemed beyond help.They mutilated themselves frequently and appeared too
distracted to notice much about their surroundings.
One mouse, though, a female whom Betsy had named
Daphne, had a habit of standing on her hind legs, peering up hopefully,
her front paws pushing forward, every time Betsy was near.Sometimes she
had seen her running in circles from boredom,pain and
frustration.Daphne, Betsy told herself , is not too far gone to
save.
One day, very close to the time that she was to
leave her job at the laboratory, Betsy surreptitiously slipped Daphne
into her lab coat pocket, walked into the parking lot and drove
home.
Daphne had a new home, with her own little house
where she had places to run; she had learned to get around quickly
despite missing toes.She had branches, yarn and other toys to play with
and, instead of the dull laboratory pellets, she now got all kinds of
things to eat, including oats, bread,raisins and dates, and one of her
favourites, alfalfa.By the time she died an old mouse, it was unlikely
that Daphne could any longer remember her miserable beginnings, so full
had her later life been with games, treats, attention and
love.
