[Guns N' Coffee]

https://apnews.com/article/animal-ri...59394340403cba

About 1,000 animal welfare activists who tried to gain entry Saturday to a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin were turned back by police who fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd and arrested the group’s leader.

It was the second attempt in as many months by protesters to take beagles from the Ridglan Farms facility in Blue Mounds, a small town about 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Madison.

Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett, said in a video statement that 300 to 400 protesters were “violently trying to break into the property” and assault officers. He said protesters have ignored designated areas for peaceful protest and blocked roads to prevent emergency vehicles from entering.

“This is not a peaceful protest,” Barrett said.

The sheriff’s department said a “significant” number of people were arrested out of about 1,000 protesters at the site but did not give an exact total as they were still being processed as of the afternoon.

Protesters tried to overcome barricades that included a manure-filled trench, hay bales and a barbed-wire fence. Some protesters did get through the fence but were unable to enter the facility, where an estimated 2,000 beagles are kept, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

“I just feel defeated,” activist Julie Vrzeski told the newspaper about three hours into the operation after no dogs had been successfully seized.

Activists later moved from the Ridglan facility to protest outside the jail in downtown Madison.

The group Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs had publicized plans to seize the dogs Sunday but launched its operation a day earlier. The X account of the group’s leader, Wayne Hsiung, posted a picture of him being arrested.

The sheriff’s department said a person who “recklessly” drove a pickup through the front gate of the property was arrested, “preventing a potentially deadly outcome.”

Protesters broke into the facility in March and took 30 dogs. Twenty-seven people were arrested on trespassing and other charges.

Ridglan has denied mistreating animals but agreed in October to give up its state breeding license as of July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges.

On its website it says “no credible evidence of animal abuse, cruelty, mistreatment or neglect at Ridglan Farms has ever been presented or substantiated.”

[Mr.NoCredit]

A breeder farm with a number of 2,000 dogs!?!

Seriously what the fuck is with that!?!

[kellyhound]

Ridglan Farms is a major Class A dealer that breeds beagles by the thousands specifically to sell to research laboratories, universities, and pharmaceutical companies for biomedical testing.

Beagles are the most commonly used dog breed in laboratories because of their small size and docile, trusting nature. Their gentle temperament makes them easy for researchers to handle during invasive procedures.

In addition to breeding, Ridglan Farms is also a licensed research facility that conducts its own internal experiments and toxicity tests.

While they are giving up their breeding license, he right to sell dogs to others, they will continue to operate as a USDA-licensed research facility per July 1.

They are still permitted to breed and house several hundred beagles for their own internal experiments and toxicity tests but they have not yet clarified how many dogs will remain for this internal branch.

Dogs are often forced to inhale, ingest, or be injected with experimental drugs, chemicals, or pesticides to determine safe dosage levels for humans.

Ridglan’s dogs have historically been used to advance canine vaccines and cancer treatments.

Records have revealed that nearly 275 beagles die each year while still at the breeding facility.

At the University of Missouri, experimenters sickened or killed 40 healthy dogs from Ridglan in tick vaccine tests in which they glued disease-filled “tick containment chambers” to dogs’ skin and allowed ticks to feed on them for several days.

At the Illinois Institute of Technology, experimenters forced beagles to inhale an experimental COVID-19 drug before killing them.

According to public records obtained by Rise for Animals and the Marty Project, UW–Madison bought 19 dogs from Ridglan between January 2022 and July 2023.

The university experiments on dogs in dozens of painful, ineffective tests. DNA sharing between Beagles and Humans isn't the only factor but the function of the genes matters more. Humans and dogs share about 84% of their DNA, including over 17,000 similar genes.

About 90% of today’s basic research, most of which involves experiments on animals, fails to lead to effective treatments for humans. And 95% of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human trials.

Dogs naturally develop spontaneous diseases that are nearly identical to human versions, including certain types of cancers, like osteosarcoma and prostate cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, and heart disease.

Dogs have cardiovascular, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems that function very similarly to those of humans, which is critical for testing medical devices like pacemakers or heart valves.

Rodents often have to be engineered to get these diseases, making dogs more accurate models for certain treatments.

Among the thousands of beagles Ridglan Farms bred and sold to laboratories is a beagle called Temple. Ridglan shipped Temple off to High Quality Research in Colorado, where a PETA investigator found her cowering in a kennel, shaking in fear.

Like he did to all dogs in the laboratory, the facility’s veterinarian cut her vocal cords without giving her any form of pain relief afterward. The laboratory confined Temple and other dogs to chain-link kennels in stark cinderblock rooms nearly 24/7.

Miraculously, they got Temple out of there. Two PETA staff members adopted her, and today, she enjoys a life of love, comfort, and care.
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Today, AI models can analyze vast databases of previous experiments to predict if a new chemical will be toxic to human organs like the liver or heart.

Instead of testing thousands of compounds on animals, some researchers use AI to virtually screen millions of molecules, only moving forward with the few that are predicted to be safe and effective.

Drugs discovered via AI have shown a Phase I success rate of 80–90%, compared to the historical average of roughly 52%, meaning fewer failed drugs are tested in living subjects. However every AI model must be trained on real biological data.

To know if an AI's prediction is correct, it must still be compared against physical results from laboratory tests.

Hope they hurry up with Quantum computing as Quantum algorithms can simulate how drug molecules interact with human proteins at an atomic level with extreme precision.

By identifying exactly how a drug binds to a target, quantum computing can eliminate candidates that might cause off-target side effects before they ever reach a lab.

[Guns N' Coffee]

https://apnews.com/article/animal-we...75590de1610d7c

1,500 beagles will get new lives, warm laps after release from research facility

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The first beagles removed from a Wisconsin dog breeding and research facility that was the site of recent protests seemed to know right away that they were safe.

“They started within an hour or so coming up to us, wanting attention. Some crawled in people’s laps. Every single one of them are super sweet,” Lauree Simmons, president and founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue, said Sunday. “I think they are loving the attention. I just know they know they’re safe.”

Big Dog Ranch Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy negotiated a confidential agreement to purchase the 1,500 dogs for an undisclosed price from Ridglan Farms, where police used tear gas and pepper spray to repel activists trying to take beagles from the facility last month. Protesters also broke into the facility in March and took 30 dogs. Sixty-three people were referred by the sheriff’s department to the district attorney for potential charges related to that break-in.

Talks to purchase the animals began months before the April disturbance, and Simmons said her group wasn’t connected to the protests. Now, Big Dog Ranch Rescue is working with partners all over the country to find homes for 1,000 of the dogs, while the Center for a Humane Economy is taking the rest.

Simmons said her group has received over 700 adoption applications, but it might take some time before the hounds are ready for their new homes as the organization screens potential dog parents, moves the animals to shelters around the country and ensures the beagles are housebroken.

The first 300 dogs were taken from Ridglan on Friday, with more scheduled for removal over the next week. The animal groups have set up a staging area with play yards in Wisconsin, where the dogs are being vaccinated, microchipped, spayed or neutered and prepared for transport, Simmons said. Big Dog Ranch Rescue has already started moving dogs to its location in western Palm Beach County, Florida.

“The younger dogs will adjust quicker, and the older dogs will take time,” Simmons said. “A lot of them are more willing to accept love and want to be with people.”

Ridglan Farms didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Beagles are the most common breed of dog used for animal testing, primarily because of their smaller size and gentle temperament, Simmons said.

“A Belgian Malinois is not going to put up with being tested on, being confined in a kennel their whole life,” Simmons said of the athletic shepherd dogs commonly used by police and the military. “Beagles are just so trusting and docile and calm and forgiving, so they are the most chosen dogs for animal testing. And so we’re going to take one of the sweetest, kindest, most trusting breeds and abuse them? This is wrong. This needs to stop.”

Ridglan Farms agreed in October to give up its state breeding license as of July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on felony animal mistreatment charges. The firm has denied mistreating animals, but a special prosecutor determined that Ridglan Farms was performing eye procedures that violated state veterinary standards.

About 1,000 activists from across the country came to Ridglan Farms in the rural village of Blue Mounds, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Madison, on April 18 in an attempt to take the beagles. They were met by police who used tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. The Dane County Sheriff’s Department said 29 people were arrested and five face felony burglary charges.

Activists have filed a federal lawsuit in Wisconsin alleging that police used unnecessary force. Ridglan has said those who tried to break in were a “violent mob” who launched “an assault on a federally licensed research facility.”