Three years ago, a male beagle was born into the rows of kennels at a research breeding facility in Cumberland, Virginia, operated by a company called Envigo that sold dogs to animal testing labs. It was May 18, 2022—the day the U.S. Department of Justice served a search warrant and started the process of seizing more than 445 dogs for treatment of urgent medical problems. Envigo agreed to shut down the facility after investigators found violations of the Animal Welfare Act—inadequate food, housing and veterinary care. And the Justice Department turned to Humane World for Animals for help.
Over the course of two months, our Animal Rescue Team and partners removed the remaining 3,700 dogs from the facility and transferred them to partners who placed them with adopters. The beagle puppy was 8 weeks old when he, his mom and his littermates arrived at our care and rehabilitation center in Maryland. Adam Parascandola, who oversaw the massive operation from May into early September as vice president of the rescue team, was looking to adopt one of the beagles and center staff suggested the puppy. Parascandola named him Enzo.
Adam Parascandola
Parascandola says he did not know what kind of response they would get when trying to find adopters for more than 4,000 other beagles. They had just 60 days to remove them from the breeding facility. But the news of the effort caught the imagination of the country. People wanted beagles.
“It was overwhelming,” Parascandola says. “We ended up with more response than we had dogs.”
By truck, van and plane, Envigo beagles landed all over the country. Never before had so many beagles bound for research made it out alive, says Kathleen Conlee, Humane World vice president for animal research issues. It helped shine a spotlight on animals in research.
“We’ve never seen a facility in the animal research industry shuttered like that,” she says. “Now there’s this whole network of beagles out there. Their stories are out there. And they’re having an impact.”
Envigo survivors in advocacy bandanas and their families celebrate three years of freedom at an Envigo Beagle Reunion on July 26, 2025, in State College, Pennsylvania.
Many of those who adopted beagles take them for walks wearing “Envigo survivor” bandanas to invite questions from passersby. Kelly Williams, formerly an editor at Humane World, doesn’t advertise that Franny, the mother dog she adopted at 3 years old, came from the Envigo facility. But Franny educates nevertheless.
“If someone comes up to pet her, she’s nervous. I always offer an explanation. [Their response] is universally shock and disgust. Having her as the living breathing embodiment of what this does to dogs is helpful.”
Kelly Williams
The Envigo case was a milestone that accelerated change, Conlee says. While Inotiv, Envigo’s parent company, still can use dogs in its laboratories, a Justice Department settlement prohibits the company from breeding dogs for laboratories, imposes higher standards of care than those in the Animal Welfare Act and set up independent, third-party monitoring. The Better Care for Animals Act, which would give the Department of Justice more power to enforce the Animal Welfare Act at animal breeding and research facilities (as well as puppy mills, roadside zoos and other operations regulated under the law), has just been reintroduced in Congress. The law would authorize the justice department to revoke licenses, impose civil penalties, and seize mistreated animals.
Public pressure has forced a steady decrease in the number of beagles in research, used because they are so docile, Conlee says. In 2013, it was 74,000 a year. Now it’s approximately 47,000 a year.
Seventeen states have passed bipartisan bills that require dogs and cats used in research to be put up for adoption when they are retired. That includes Iowa, where Republican state Sen. Dan Dawson, who sponsored that state’s adoption bill, took one of the Envigo beagles home and then posted about it on Facebook. Before the Envigo case, California passed a bill stopping the use of dogs for pesticide and chemical testing. After the surrender, Illinois passed a similar bill that included drug tests.
Adam Parascandola
Earlier this year, within a three-month period, the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health (which closed its beagle lab in June) all announced they were moving away from requiring testing on dogs and other animals. The Navy also announced it is ending all research involving dogs and cats.
Today, Enzo, who was too young in 2022 to have been affected by the conditions at the breeding facility, lives the life of a well-adjusted beagle with Parascandola in Washington state. During the summer, he rides in the cable cars at Mount Rainier. He hikes. He bays at deer beyond the fence of his yard. He also likes laying on the couch. More important, says Parascandola, he gets to put his sense of smell to work as he never would have in a research facility. “He spends all his time sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. Their whole life is focused on their nose. I can’t imagine him [living] in a lab.”
/The HSUS
Related stories
Kendra Stanley-Mills/AP Images for the HSUS
Beagles freed after Humane World for Animals (formerly called HSUS) investigation finally get the homes they deserve.
The HSUS
Some dogs have already been put down; the Humane Society of the United States hopes to help the others suffering in lab experiments.
Bryan Mitchell/AP Images for The HSUS
How we’re fighting to end experiments on dogs and get these animals the homes they deserve.
