A cage for a home, a sterile environment for a neighbourhood and tests upon tests that hurt and finally, kill – this is the life of a laboratory beagle dog.
Most suffer in silence, sacrificing their lives for human good. These dogs are sometimes released in the outside world, and the docile canines make for really special pets.
As many as 64 beagles have been released from a testing laboratory in Bangalore this week and will be up for adoption over the weekend. The fortunate part of this tale is that these dogs haven’t been tested upon; some are breeding stock while others were awaiting test approvals that didn’t come through.
What Families Can Adopt These Dogs?
The release and rehabilitation of these sterilised and vaccinated dogs – 40 males and 24 females between the age of 7 and 10 – is being done by Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), Bangalore.
Chinthana Gopinath, 36, who is in charge of the re-homing says:
“These beagles have lived their entire lives in small metal cages and now have the phenomenal opportunity to be free. Due to lack of exposure to the outside world, they need to learn every little nuance of living in a home – using the stairs, toilet training, coming up to people for a cuddle, going on walks. They are right now identified only by numbers. They need names, a real identity. From past experience we know that with lots of love and patience they all learn to become much loved pets of families. People who come forward will receive guidance from families who have adopted laboratory-rescued beagles earlier.”
The team is looking at families who are in it for the long haul.
Most of these dogs have no instincts. “The romance of adopting a rescued dog dies in three days. Thus, for each mail that we are receiving, we are trying to gain a sense of assurance that they are in it for the right reasons. Then we are calling the selected ones, explaining the levels of commitment and patience required to rehabilitate a laboratory-rescued beagle. If at the end of that conversation, the family’s commitment convinces us, they are invited to the adoption camp. For outstation people, they must come to Bangalore and take the new family member home,” says Chinthana, who adopted Sasha from a rehabilitation programme in 2013.
Her Facebook page, “Speak for Sasha”, is constantly updating people on the latest release.
Why are Beagles Used for Testing?
Beagles are the chosen ones simply because they are ideal.
International standardisation names the beagle as the dog breed meant for research. They have strong immunity, good disposition and are easy to handle. Also, drugs are given on a per kilo basis; the beagle is a mid-sized dog and is cost effective.Consultant veterinarian, pharmaceutical company, Gujarat
Interestingly, these beagles are bred in farms in China specifically for research. Such dogs are different from their show dog counterparts. They are smaller in size and docile.
The initial stock is brought from China – after which labs mate unrelated males to females. The parent beagles are later put up for adoption. The litter, ideally from 9 months, is put up for research in diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, anti-obesity and pain management.
“Studies can happen over a long time... in the end, we euthanise the dogs for researching the sample organs,” says the vet.
These dogs are subjected to cruel toxicity tests in which they are injected with chemicals, experimental drugs or pesticides in increasingly higher doses.
They are routinely used in India for acute and chronic toxico-kinetic studies, maximum tolerated dose studies, etc. Recently, these dogs had their legs cut open so that transmitters could be inserted into them, had tubes forced into their penises and were repeatedly injected with experimental drugs.Dr Chaitanya Koduri, science policy adviser, PETA India
Like Sasha, they routinely have their vocal cords removed for ease of handling. Dogs that are out for adoption are shy and scared by nature, after prolonged confinement and experimenting.
Can This Be Avoided?
The law in India requires that non-animal tests be used whenever they are available.
Section 15 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 permits only those experiments on animals which will further new discoveries or physiological knowledge useful for saving or prolonging the life of human beings, animals or plants.
Section 17 of this Act confers on the Committee for the Purpose of Controlling and Supervising Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) the duty to take all such measures as may be necessary to ensure that animals are not subjected to unnecessary pain or suffering during or after the experiments.
If you would like to adopt or foster these beagles, send an email to freaglesofbangalore@gmail.com with the basic details and the reason you’d like to do so.
(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)
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