In August 2022, Northwoods Humane Society opened its doors to 30 beagles from the Envigo facility in Cumberland, Virginia Northwoods Humane Society assists in the Humane Society of the United States’ work to find placement for approximately 4,000 beagles
Northwoods Humane Society has brought 30 beagles to its Shelter in Hayward, WI as part of the group of beagles to be removed from a mass-breeding facility riddled with animal welfare concerns. The Humane Society of the United States is coordinating the removal of approximately 4,000 beagles housed at an Envigo RMS LLC facility in Cumberland, VA which bred dogs to be sold to laboratories for animal experimentation. The transfer plan was submitted by the Department of Justice and Envigo RMS LLC, with the agreement of the Humane Society of the United States to assume the responsibility of coordinating placement. The transfer will take place in stages over the next 60 days, and the dogs will be up for adoption via Northwoods Humane Society and other shelters and rescues. After the Beagles arrive at the Shelter, they will be given a couple days to decompress, then we have a small army of volunteers who are ready to come in and give baths, do paperwork and enter each dog into our data base. We have a volunteer vet who will be going over each dog to assess their medical needs, pull blood for testing and microchip each. We will also have a volunteer trainer (Jana Nichols, from Northwoods Canine Connection in Chetek) who has offered to evaluate each dog for personality and training needs. The minute we put a plea out asking for foster homes of foster to adopt homes, we were immediately inundated by dozens of applications coming from as far away as Southern Illinois. Each of these dogs will be going into a actual home on the 27th. Jana Nichols is not only fostering but is also setting up online to work with each of the foster homes to help the Beagles adjust to so many things that they have never seen (grass, the sky, a home, TV, basically everything besides the 4 sterile walls of the kennels that they have spent their lives in.) The transfer plan comes as a result of a lawsuit filed against Envigo by the Department of Justice in May, alleging Animal Welfare Act violations at the facility. Repeated federal inspections have resulted in dozens of violations, including findings that some dogs had been “euthanized” without first receiving anesthesia, that dogs had received inadequate veterinary care and insufficient food, and that they were living in unsanitary conditions. “It takes a massive network of compassionate, expert shelters and rescues to make an operation of this scale possible,” said Lindsay Hamrick, shelter outreach and engagement director for the Humane Society of the United States. “We are deeply grateful to each organization that is stepping up to find these dogs the loving homes they so deserve.” The Humane Society of the United States is maintaining a list of partners accepting animals into their adoption program. For more information about the beagles Northwoods Humane Society is finding homes for, visit www.northwoodshumanesociety.org or keep an eye on the story as it progresses on our Northwoods Humane Society Facebook page.
