Around 60,000 dogs are used for experiments in the U.S. each year and the most commonly used breed is the beagle. Sadly, most of these dogs are euthanized after the laboratories are done using them for testing or experimentation, but 10 beagles who were recently rescued from a Midwest lab are getting a second chance at a happy life.
The Canadian nonprofit The Beagle Alliance picked up the pups and is taking a few of them back to Manitoba to be adopted. On the way, they stopped at a volunteer’s residence in Bloomington, Minnesota, where the three-year-old pups got a chance to play on a grassy yard for the first time in their lives.
The pooches owe their second chance to a state law in Minnesota requiring labs to offer the dogs to shelters when possible. The Beagle Alliance executive director Lori Cohen believes it’s not necessary for a lot of the pups to be euthanized, saying they “can go on to live longer lives outside the cage.” After the dogs’ traumatic first few years of life, they need to be reconditioned for a few weeks before they can be put up for adoption and at least a couple of them already have forever families waiting to bring them home.
Source: CBS NEWS