This essay was written by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D., with Jane Goodall, Ph.D.
Every year, more than 40,000 dogs, mostly beagles, are used in research in the United States. They are often used in painful and deadly tests, and laws to protect them are minimal. While some researchers support this shocking and unnecessary testing, we believe there is good reason to end this betrayal of dogs, so often referred to (with good reason) as humans’ best friend.1 Very few people are aware that this is going on and are very surprised and deeply concerned when they learn about it.2
It’s important to understand what dogs can go through even before they reach a lab. On January 9, 2025, a judge in Dane County, Wisconsin, ordered the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of criminal animal cruelty at Ridglan Farms, which sits just outside Madison. Ridglan is one of only two large U.S. “purpose breeders” of beagles for experimentation. Ridglan has been in business since 1966 and holds about 3,000 beagles in huge, industrial sheds. It also has an atrocious record on animal welfare. Last month, the district attorney of La Crosse County was selected to begin the investigation.
As the court’s order details, inspections by state and federal regulatory bodies have documented deficient housing, untreated injuries, and unsanitary conditions at Ridglan for years. In June, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection conducted a regular inspection there; because it found violations, the department conducted a follow-up inspection in September, and found more. The reports documented dogs limping with untreated foot injuries, lack of positive human contact and socialization, excrement in cages and accumulating on floors, “stagnant pools of moisture,” and exhaust fans “coated with organic material, restricting air movement.” Government inspectors have allowed Ridglan to agree to rectify such issues, only to have the company commit them again.
Those and other violations were detailed in October at an all-day evidentiary hearing in the case seeking a special prosecutor. (One of us, Marc, testified in the proceeding.) What we see, on videos captured by activists who entered Ridglan and rescued three dogs and in the inspection reports, is dogs suffering extreme psychological distress. An attorney for Ridglan did not respond to a request for comment for this post. The company previously told a local TV station that it “is subject to extensive state and federal regulations that govern its operations and [that it] takes compliance with those regulations seriously.”2
Dogs in the experimentation industry are routinely mutilated. Sometimes their vocal cords are cut so that their barking will not disturb animal experimenters. One of the most egregious revelations to emerge from Ridglan is its practice of “cherry-eye removal” surgery. Current and former Ridglan employees say these have for years routinely been conducted by non-veterinarians and without supervision. The dog is restrained while an overgrown gland is crudely cut off the dog’s eye, with little—and often no—anesthesia, pain relief, bleeding control, or aftercare. Removing this gland leaves dogs with permanently painful dry eyes.
What awaits dogs when they arrive at a laboratory is often worse. They are used in all sorts of lab experiments: to test drugs, pesticides, and medical devices, for example. Some are specially bred to have diseases or operated on to give them the symptoms of diseases. A common technique for toxicology testing is “oral gavage,” in which a tube is shoved down dogs’ throats and they are forced to ingest substances. Dogs rarely make it out of a lab alive.
In the past decade, dogs purchased from Ridglan have been subjected to hour-long strokes, killing several and leaving the rest with severe brain damage; injured to simulate a rotator cuff injury; and sickened with a high-potency sweetener. All of the dogs used in these experiments were killed, either in the experiments themselves or afterward.
All of these tests are legal. The Animal Welfare Act, which regulates both labs and breeders such as Ridglan, places no restrictions on experimental design or purpose, no matter how painful or trivial. If researchers claim that their experimental objectives require them to violate standards that the AWA covers, such as providing adequate food, water, or exercise, they may lawfully do so.
Even these requirements are limited. For example, under the AWA, dog cages need to be only six inches longer and taller than the dog’s full body length and height; doubling this space eliminates the requirement to ever allow the dogs outside the cage. At October’s Ridglan evidentiary hearing, one witness testified that, when he worked there, the dogs never went outside and were only let out of their cages to be transported to a lab.
And these minimal protections are inadequately enforced. Multiple audits by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general have found that enforcement of federal animal welfare laws is “basically meaningless” and “ineffective.” In October 2018, The Washington Post reported that during the first three quarters of that year, the federal government had filed only one administrative complaint.
In February, USDA’s inspector general released an audit of dog-breeding facilities. It found that a whopping 80 percent of audited breeders had not fully corrected previous AWA noncompliances, that “inconsistent and untimely inspections” by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service may have contributed to the problem, and that the service had not promptly responded to complaints—all of which “poses a threat to the safety and well-being of the animals.”
For thousands of years, humans have selectively bred dogs to be loyal to us and need our care. To breed and then use them in deadly and painful experiments is a profound betrayal of trust.
Where to from here? The use of non-animal alternatives
It does not have to be this way. Since 1979, the number of dogs used in experiments has been reduced by 80 percent, and Americans are increasingly opposed to the use of animals in medical testing. In 2015, the United States ended all federal funding for experimentation on chimpanzees when, after 18 months, a group of NIH scientists, having examined each test then being conducted, concluded they were neither of benefit or even of potential benefit to humans.
There are very good reasons why dogs and other animals shouldn’t be bred and used for painful and other experiments when there are numerous more effective, cheaper, and safer non-animal alternatives readily available.3 These include in vitro testing, computer (in silico) modeling, human patient simulators, experiments performed on biological molecules, and using robotics, tissue engineering, and human volunteers.
We are not putting the welfare of dogs and other nonhumans above the welfare of humans. We’re simply reviewing what is known about the effectiveness of non-animal models in all sorts of psychological and biomedical research.
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