Nearly 4,000 beagles are searching for new homes after being rescued from a breeder who sells them to laboratories for drug experiments. The dogs were being bred in a facility in Virginia, America, and would have been used as test subjects until they no longer served a use to the laboratory.
Owned by a company called Envigo RMS, the facility was sued by the US Department of Justice in May following accusations of multiple acts of animal cruelty. Inspectors have described the dogs ' poor living conditions, with many being fed with food containing mould, faeces and maggots.
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It was discovered some nursing mothers were being denied anything to eat, and dogs with treatable medical conditions were being killed rather than receiving veterinary care to cure their illness or ailment.
Shockingly, 25 dogs had died from cold exposure.
But as the company has now been shut down, animal right activists have made it their mission to rehome all of the dogs to help give them the lives they deserve.
Head of the Humane Society Kitty Block says it will take about 60 days to get all of the animals out of their cages and placed into rescue centres.
She told Reuters: "Four thousand is a big number."
Thanks to the Humane Society, about 200 dogs have already been rehomed in southern California.
According to American Anti-Vivisection Society, beagles are the most common breed of dog used for experiments because they are docile and small, allowing for "more animals to be housed and cared for using less space and money".
A statement reads: "Dogs are often used in biomedical research investigating heart and lung disease, cancer, and orthopaedics.
"They are also used in toxicity studies to test the safety of drugs and industrial chemicals, but are rarely used to assess the safety of personal care and household products.
"Most dogs used in research are purpose-bred in laboratories or by private companies that sell strictly to labs.
"Dogs can be bred to be pathogen-free or genetically manipulated to be a model of human disease."
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