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Sparkle (2)
Next time you brush your teeth or make a Botox appointment, think of Snoopy, the Peanuts dog who sleeps atop his wee red house and dances with unabashed glee at suppertime. Snoopy is a beagle, which is exactly the breed that many labs prefer when conducting dental/medical research testing. Thankfully, beagles have won a new champion in Shannon Keith, an LA-based animal rights lawyer and founder of the newly established Beagle Freedom Foundation.
Just over a month old, the foundation aims to rescue and find homes for beagles used in laboratory research, meanwhile encouraging labs to release their animals instead of destroying them. It began in early December when Shannon received a tip that a nearby testing lab would be willing to release a dozen dogs to people who sought homes for them. (Because of the holidays, lab workers didn't wanted to stay and care for them so the dogs were slated for destruction.) Shannon and her crew could only take on two dogs (the other 10 went to a similar foundation) with just 24-hours notice.
"Not only is this a horrific practice, but is also wasteful in so many ways. Often the experiments that these dogs were subjected to have not concluded, and the new batch coming in will need to start from scratch."
--Shannon Keith, SFGate.com
I chatted with Shannon by phone, hoping to learn more about her noble mission. For fear of ruining the relationship and the informal arrangement with the research lab, Shannon opted not to disclose the name of the facility. "I will say it's a well respected university in Northern California," she said. Evidently, the lab tests for medical products that are currently on the market.
This heart-tugging video shows Shannon and her friends picking up the pups and introducing them to the world. In their previous lab life, they'd never been petted, breathed fresh air or romped around on grass but their inherent 'dogginess' soon kicks in. Check it out:
It's a happy ending for the two beagles, Freedom (1.5 yrs. old) and Bigsby (2.5 yrs. old), who have both found forever homes, but there were psychological challenges. Both dogs have "kitty friends" that are helping with their adaptation to home life but Shannon says it's still a long road for Bigsby.
"Both are progressing quite well but Bigsby is still timid and quite afraid. Sounds from the faucet, air conditioner, heater, fridge, stairs - everything we take for granted - they are deathly afraid of. And, it’s hard for them to communicate because they can’t make a sound," said Shannon. The dogs were "debarked" as pups so as not to disturb lab workers and yes, that's as horrible as it sounds -- their vocal chords were removed.
To get around this problem, one owner has a doorknob bell and is training the dog to hit the bell when he wants to go outside. "They both love people. They greet everyone with kisses and love," Shannon said. "It’s quite amazing to see the trust they have in people."
These are exactly the people-pleasing personality traits that make beagles so popular with the research industry. Widely known as docile, trusting and forgiving, beagles apparently "adapt well" to living in a cage and are inexpensive to feed. Labs usually buy the dogs in bulk from commercial breeders (for about $750 per animal) who specifically breed for those same trusting qualities. This makes the dogs the breed-of-choice for testing pharmaceuticals, household products and cosmetics.
For Shannon, animal rights isn't just a hobby, it's her day job and her passion. As an criminal defense attorney in Studio City, California, Shannon fights for animals and their human rescuers. In 2004, Shannon co-founded the nonprofit animal advocacy group, Animal Rescue, Media & Education (ARME), which utilizes the media to educate the masses on animal rights.
"I started it because I was doing a lot of rescue work and getting frustrated. We were doing the ‘clean-up’ and not stopping the problem at its roots. With ARME, we aim to use media as an educational tool to show people what’s going on with these animals because they really just don't know. The mainstream media doesn’t want to show people what’s going on because so many shows on television are being sponsored by companies like Proctor & Gamble, a company that does a lot of the testing and buys a lot of advertising. They (media companies) don’t want to piss them
