By Kathleen Beaver, President & CEO

Last summer our news feeds were filled with images of beagles being rescued from a breeding facility in Virginia that serves the laboratory industry. Upon several inspections by the US Department of Agriculture and an investigation conducted by the Humane Society of the United States, dozens of violations of federal regulation and hundreds of dogs who were sick, suffering and dying were found at the Envigo facility. This led to a massive effort to find foster and adoptive homes for the more than 4,000 beagles who were removed from the breeding facility. Shelters and rescues from across the country stepped in to help.

Animal Friends, working collaboratively with Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh (HARP) and Beaver County Humane Society, Butler County Humane Society and Washington County Humane Society, brought several dozen of the dogs to our region for treatment, socialization and, ultimately, adoption.

But the story can’t end there. And in Pennsylvania, it doesn’t!

Thanks to the committed work of the Humane Society of the United States, members of the state legislature, local animal welfare organizations and animal lovers, the plight of the Envigo beagles and the need for protection for animals from inhumane breeding and testing is getting attention.

Reunions of the rescued and adopted beagles are popping up across the state and they are not simply to show off these cute pups! The Beagle Reunions are in support of the Dogs and Cats Taxpayer Protection Bill and the Beagle Protection Act. The Dogs and Cats Taxpayer Protection Bill would end the use of state funds to support painful experiments on dogs and cats and require state-funded institutions to make healthy dogs available for adoption after testing, as well as increase transparency about the amount of state funding institutions have received for animal testing. The Beagle Protection Act would prohibit the sale of dogs and cats bred by a person with certain violations under the Animal Welfare Act and ensure that dogs and cats used for testing are made available for adoption. These bills would be a significant step forward towards ending the horrible conditions that animals like the Envigo beagles were subjected to in research breeding facilities and would have been subjected to in testing facilities.

As Rep. Ryan Bizzarro, chairman of the House Majority Policy Committee remarked, “We’re going to do everything we can to protect them … to ensure they are not being tested on … that they’re able to be on someone’s lap not in a lab.”

The outcome for the 4,000 beagles from the Envigo case was thankfully a positive one. But we know there is still so much work to be done and so many animals to be saved from this kind of existence. Please use your voice, a stroke of your pen or a click of your mouse to make a critical and lifesaving change for the animals.

For the future of these and so many more animals, it’s the least we can do.

For more information about these bills and to show your support, visit pahouse.com/beaglebills.