From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1998:
Leo K. Bustad, DVM, 78, died
from pneumonia on September 19 in Pullman,
Washington. Born in Stanwood, Washington,
Bustad earned a B.A. in agriculture at
Washington State University in Pullman in
1941, and on the same day became a lieutenant
in the U.S. Army. He married Signe
Byrd, a WSU classmate, in June 1942 at Fort
Benning, Georgia, shortly before shipping out
to fight in Italy and Germany. Captured by the
Nazis, Bustad spent 15 months at a Germanrun
prison camp in Poland. Reunited in June
1945, Bustad and Byrd thereafter remained
together until her death in March 1998.
Postwar, Bustad returned to WSU to earn an
M.A. in animal nutrition (1948) and his DVM
(1949). From 1948 until 1965, Bustad did
invasive radiation research on animals at the
Hanford National Laboratory, often collaborating
with faculty of the University of
California at Davis. Bustad himself headed
the radiobiology and comparative oncology
labs at U.C. Davis from mid-1965 until 1973,
helping direct work involving as many as
1,200 beagles at an off-campus location now
listed as a top-priority Superfund toxic waste
cleanup site. The experiments ended in 1986,
when the last beagle died. The dogs’ radioactive
remains were removed to Hanford in
1990. Rheem Araj, a beagle care technician
1972-1973, alleged in a 1994 lawsuit while
fighting a life-threatening lymphoma that news
coverage of the carcass removal was the first
word she received that she might have been
extensively exposed to radiation. Araj further
alleged that the radiation was responsible for
her cancer. ANIMAL PEOPLE found no
information about the outcome of either the
case or her illness. From 1973 until 1983,
Bustad served as dean of the WSU College of
Veterinary Medicine. Upon retirement, he
became president of the Delta Society, founded
in 1976 by Michael J. McCulloch, a psychiatrist
in Portland, Oregon, who pioneered
the use of animal-assisted therapy. Keeping
his main office at WSU, as dean emeritus and
professor emeritus of veterinary physiology,
Bustad moved the Delta Society to Renton,
Washington, where it maintains the National
Service Dog Center and carries out other programs
on behalf of service dog users and pet
keepers. Recipient of various humanitarian
awards late in life, Bustad wrote two books,
Animals, Aging, and the Aged (1980) and
Compassion: Our Last Great Hope (1990), as
well as co-authoring Learning and Living
Together: Building the Human-Animal Bond.
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