Happy National Dog Day To All But Anti-Puppy Paxton, Who Covered Up Puppy Abuse For Hundreds Of Tortured Lab Animals

Aug 26

3 min read

AUSTIN, TX — Happy National Dog Day to all but anti-puppy Ken Paxton, who was just exposed for burying the record of hundreds of tortured puppies in research labs, concealing alleged animal abuse from public records requests.

Paxton has an extreme anti-puppy record and was one of only 15 Republicans to vote against a bill that made animal abusers, instead of taxpayers and shelters, pay for the cost of housing for the animals they had abused. Talarico meanwhile recently held a dog adoption event to help support the Austin Humane Society and is running on a pro-puppy platform.

August 19, 2026

By Aaron Parnas

Ken Paxton is no stranger to cover-ups. But one episode that’s gone largely unreported is the fact that Paxton’s own office actively helped conceal evidence of animal abuse, and fought to keep the public from ever seeing it.
In 2015, animal rescue groups from 23 states filed more than 100 public records requests trying to find out how more than 400 dogs were being treated inside Texas A&M University’s research labs. The push came after the university admitted, in disclosures to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that it had used 428 dogs and 15 cats for research, and that at least 100 of those dogs experienced pain during testing. Activists wanted the daily care logs for individual animals, some identified only by lab ID numbers, others by names like Buddy and Sadie Sue, according to reporting at the time from the San Antonio Express-News.
The demand for transparency wasn’t coming out of nowhere. A 2009 report from Animalearn, a division of the American Anti-Vivisection Society, had already found that Texas A&M engaged in “pound seizure,” obtaining live animals from municipal shelters for lab use. Records showed that between January 2005 and July 2008, the university acquired 474 live dogs from local shelters, primarily the Lehman Animal Shelter in Giddings, Texas, and euthanized them the same day they were acquired, according to the Houston Press. Between 2006 and 2008, the university also acquired 86 dead cats from the same shelter.
Instead of siding with transparency, Paxton’s office stepped in and ruled that the care logs could be kept hidden from the public entirely. The opinion cited veterinarian-client confidentiality, claiming “a veterinarian may not violate the confidential relationship between the veterinarian and the veterinarian’s client,” language that left open an obvious and unsettling question: was the “client” the university, or was it the dog?
The ruling effectively slammed the door on public accountability. Animal welfare organizations, including the Beagle Freedom Project, went on to sue Texas A&M over the withheld records, and the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas publicly criticized the fact that the Attorney General’s office had backed the university’s refusal to release the records.
We now have unreported photos and video of the abuse Paxton’s office fought to keep hidden. People should see exactly what his office worked so hard to conceal.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. In May 2011, as a member of the Texas House, Paxton was one of only 15 Republicans to vote against House Bill 963, a bill that made convicted animal abusers, not taxpayers or shelters, pay for the cost of housing and caring for the animals they’d abused while their cases were on appeal.
The bill was about as close to consensus legislation as it gets. It passed the Texas House 122 to 15, backed by testimony from the Houston Humane Society, the Houston SPCA, the Texas Humane Legislation Network, and the Humane Society of the United States, and it was signed into law by Governor Rick Perry, according to the official House record and the House Research Organization’s bill analysis.
The Texas Humane Legislation Network later credited the law with helping remove more than 20,000 animals from abusive conditions, saying “thousands more animals will be rescued by animal welfare organizations as a result of this law.” Paxton voted no.
Two episodes, a decade apart. In one, Paxton’s office used its legal authority to help bury records the public had every right to see, records concerning hundreds of animals in pain. In the other, Paxton cast one of just 15 votes in the entire Texas House against making abusers, rather than shelters and taxpayers, bear the cost of the harm they caused. Both times, Paxton had a clear choice between standing with animals and standing against them. Both times, he chose the latter, breaking with the overwhelming majority of his own party to do it.

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