PETA Video: Beagle Rescued From Massive Lab Supplier Has First Family Thanksgiving

For Immediate Release:
November 9, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

From the moment he was born, Samson knew only concrete, steel, and the noise of 5,000 other beagles who had been bred to be shipped to research laboratories around the world. He spent eight years from that moment in a barren cage at Envigo, a massive international distributor of dogs used in experiments. Samson, whose teeth were allowed to rot, sired hundreds of puppies. He shied away from human contact, likely thinking it meant only that he would be left soaked to the skin when workers sprayed his cage down with a high-pressure hose or that he was about to be used in an experiment. But as a new PETA video released today reveals, he got away just in time to spend his first Thanksgiving in a home with people who show him kindness.

Samson is one of thousands of beagles whose miserable, lonely existence is documented in PETA’s breaking undercover investigation into Envigo, where dogs don’t even have names, just six-letter tattoos on one ear. When he was released, he needed urgent care for an ear infection, blood in his urine, and over a dozen diseased teeth—but he still enjoyed his first plush bed, his first selection of toys, and his first moments of peace and quiet. He is still traumatized and will sometimes wake up barking from vivid dreams, but he’s learning how to play with other dogs, sniff new smells, observe squirrels and birds, and binge-watch TV shows on the sofa as a beloved member of a family.

“Samson got away from Envigo’s barren cages and experiments and will finally enjoy a happy Thanksgiving, but thousands of other dogs are still held captive inside that hideous beagle prison,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “Every one of these wonderful dogs feels fear, pain, and loneliness just like the dogs who share our homes can, and none of them should suffer in the experimentation business.”

Photos from PETA’s investigation are available here, and video footage is available here. Photos and video are also available via WeTransfer here and here.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.