156 Adorable Beagles Rescued From a Testing Lab, Now Looking for New Families

From the laboratory cages to finally being out in the world, 156 beagles were finally released from an animal testing laboratory in Bengaluru in southern India.

The beagles, aged between two and five years old, were captured and caged for testing purposes for a Bangalore-based pharmaceutical laboratory. The directive to release the animals came from the Committee for the Purpose Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals, which is tasked to monitor any activity relating to animal lab testing and experiments.

The rescue mission was organized by the city's animal rights group Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA) and dog boarding center Hotel For Dogs, and is known as the largest beagle rescues in the world ever.

"Luckily these dogs have not been tested upon. They were being bred for testing while the company was waiting on project approvals, and the directive was issued before any experiments were actually conducted," Chintana Gopinath, volunteer at CUPA, reported to Homegrown.

The dogs were all groomed and given shots after being released, and they look like the happiest dogs in the world.

The dogs will be released in four batches over the next two months for rehabilitation. A few days ago, the first batch of 42 beagles were already taken to Hotel For Dogs, which will be their temporary home until they are adopted.

Adoptive homes will be screened and handpicked to provide the dogs the best possible care. CUPA created an online application process for prospective adoptive parents followed by a series of screening stages. Since then, the dogs already got an overwhelming response, with over 1,000 online applications all over India.

According to Hotel For Dogs owner Adishwar TA, the dogs had been confined to small cages with very little exposure to sunlight and the outside world. They had no names and were rather identified through numbers. They also lack toilet training and other basic instincts, which is why adoptive families will need to be patient.

The second batch of 40 beagles will be released on Monday, May 23.