The beagles who survived inhumane torture at Envigo – a research company that provided animals to testing companies – got the chance to touch fresh grass for the first time on July 21st, 2022.

These beagles lived in horrifying conditions until they were sold to laboratories, some for up to $1000. The Envigo employees would spray down the cages with the dogs still inside, and they would not clean the cages as frequently as health codes require, leaving the dogs to live in their own waste.

Outside enclosures were stained with urine and feces, shown by a five-minute video from animal rights group Show Animals Respect and Kindness, posted in July of 2019. Saying that the cages were overcrowded was an understatement, when the beagles were living on top of each other.

After the drone footage was released, a USDA investigation began. Envigo employees claimed that animal welfare is their top priority, but during a routine visit in August 2019, inspectors noted multiple injuries. They found one female beagle with an orange sized mass on her mammary gland, which is where she would have produced milk, two beagles had critical skin conditions, and one had a bleeding wound on his paw.

Inspectors also found that beneath cages in one building, feces was piled several inches deep, blooming with multiple kinds of mold. Insects were found in the food they were feeding the beagles in every single building. Envigo only had one veterinarian for 3,776 dogs, most of which were suffering in one way or another.

An undercover investigator that got a job at this breeding facility found that the Envigo employees would euthanize some beagles for very minor injuries, such as a broken tail, having an underbite, or being underweight. The final destination for an unknown number of these beagles would be an incinerator. All the reasons that employees would put down the dogs were clearly the fault of the unimaginable conditions in the facility.

On July 21st, 2022, 432 beagles were released and put into the care of the Humane Society. Overtime, they rescued all of them and are still working on finding homes for the traumatized dogs.

The dogs were taken to a safe shelter, and they got to have freedom and space for the first time in their lives. They played in the grass and ate clean food, but that didn’t distract Humane Society employees from the trauma that the beagles ensued. Some dogs were overly anxious, some feared loud noises, and most of the dogs had completely rotten teeth from the infected food.

The dogs that made it out alive of the Envigo enclosures were finding homes and learning to become normal dogs. People showed up to animal shelters in the extreme morning hours to adopt and nurse these beagles back to health. Hundreds of puppies would be adopted that day, and the rest would be cared for and then find their forever homes.