Beagles Sent as 'Pets' Face Torment, Death

Thanks to a whistleblower, PETA India found out that 70 beagles exported from China into India and falsely labeled as “pets” are actually to be used in deadly experiments.  PETA India is calling on the Indian government to conduct an urgent investigation. It has also asked officials to confiscate the dogs and allow the organization to give them a chance at living in peace in adoptive homes instead of facing caging, poisoning, and death in a laboratory.

Image courtesy of sixninepixels/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I write, the beagles are being held at Animal Quarantine and Certification Services in Chennai. Their falsified  import paperwork should render the shipment illegal, as PETA India has learned that the animals, sent from commercial breeder Beijing Marshall Biotechnology Co. Ltd., are actually meant for a laboratory at Advinus Therapeutics.

Saving 70 Snoopys

People may generally picture mice, rats, and rabbits when they think about animals used in experiments, but a great many dogs—including puppies and homeless animals from shelters—are tormented and killed in laboratories as well. Dogs are often used in toxicology tests in which they are force-fed massive amounts of a drug, industrial chemical, pesticide, or household product, causing a slow, excruciating death from poisoning.

Oddly, experimenters particularly favor beagles because of their size and their eager-to-please nature—a quality that would normally make a person want to protect and care for them, not torture them.

Making the Connection

Even though I have lived with beagles and beagle mixes since childhood—including my current companions, Beau and Oliver—when it came to understanding the inexcusable cruelty of experimenting on animals, I never quite “got it” until I saw this picture during a PETA conference. That’s when I realized that there could be never be sufficient justification for inflicting this kind of suffering on a dog so much like Beau.

Then I realized something else: No animal deserves to be burned, poisoned, mutilated, or killed in a laboratory. They’re all living beings with thoughts, feelings, and desires—including the desire to live free from harm—just like my dog. Just like me. Even if animal experimentation produced reliable results (which it doesn’t), it’s no more ethical to torture a mouse, a rabbit, or a monkey in a laboratory in the name of science than it would be to torture us or our animal companions.

 What You Can Do

PETA and its international affiliates are 100 percent committed to ending the torture of animals in cruel tests and experiments, and they’ve already won many victories. But there’s more to be done—and they need your help. Learn how you can help keep animals out of laboratories.