Harvard has always taken good carel of the dogs and cats it uses for experiments--all 2500 of them.

Today, however, the Federal Government will start checking. The Laboratory Animal Welfarce Act goes into effect to insure that no stolen animals get into the University's labs, and that the researchers treat their subjects humanely.

Dr. Bernard F. Trum, director of the Animal Research Center at the Harvard Medical School, said yesterday that the new law should have few repercussions at the Research Center and in the biologyabs.

"Harvard has always followed more rigid standards than the new law calls for in obtaining and treating animals for experimentation," he said.

Trum stressed tha the law applies only up until the time actual experimentation begins on dogs, cats, hamsters and rabbits. Researchers are not under the law once they begin experimental surgery, pharmacology, and projects to study infectious diseases.

The law makes sure the animals get safely out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire.