Battle to save 'factory-farmed' puppies flown to overseas labs for experiments

Puppies flown via Humberside Airport to be tested on in laboratories.
Beagles from MBR Acres are driven two hours north to Humberside Airport (Picture: The Hull Animal Rights Team)

Activists say they won’t rest until a ‘puppy factory’ stops breeding beagles which are used for lab tests and put down at six months old.

Today protesters are amassing outside Humberside Airport, where puppies bred two hours south at MBR Acres, Huntingdon, are taken to be flown overseas. Footage taken by activists shows the dogs being put in cages, loaded into the back of lorries, and driven to the airport before being flown to Ireland for testing. Critics have called MBR Acres a ‘factory farm for dogs’, which breeds up to 2,000 beagles a year. Puppies from the Cambridgeshire facility are sent off aged 16 weeks to labs for testing and are typically put down at around six months old. A permanent protest camp has been in place outside MBR acres since June 2021, and an attempt to have it removed via a High Court injunction was rejected in October. Their campaign has gained the support of celebrities including Ricky Gervais, who has called for the facility’s closure, and Will Young, who handcuffed himself to its gates in November.

Put a ball in your dog's food bowl if he or she eats too fast. They be forced to move the ball around to get to all the food.

But the site’s owners, Marshall BioResources, says the experiments the dogs are used for form a ‘small but crucial part of a wide range of applications from ecology work to disease research’.
Puppies flown via Humberside Airport to be tested on in laboratories.
Footage taken by activists shows the puppies being carted in crates before being transported to laboratories for testing (Picture: The Hull Animal Rights Team)
This morning’s demonstration at Humberside Airport is being staged by the Hull Animal Rights Team. Its spokesman, Robert Gordon, told Metro.co.uk: ‘Until you become aware of it through one of these protests you wouldn’t think that a country like ours would do this kind of thing.

‘We’re trying to stop this barbaric, archaic practice that I think the majority of people in the UK wouldn’t want to happen.’

When asked why beagles were being used in particular, Mr Gordon said: ‘Traditionally that’s always how they’ve been. ‘Beagles were famously the ones cigarettes were tested on. They’re bred specifically as a placid breed of dog that you can do anything to.’

Mr Gordon said Marshall BioResources are ‘very tight lipped’ over where the dogs are sent and what tests are being carried out.

Puppies flown via Humberside Airport to be tested on in laboratories.
Protesters are amassing on the airport this morning calling for a stop to MBC Acre’s operation (Picture: The Hull Animal Rights Team
Pop star Will Young today, who chained himself to the gates of controversial puppy breeding facility in protest at medical experimentation on animals.
Singer Will Young chained himself to the entrance of MBR Acres in November last year (Picture: SWNS)
The US-based firm did not say what was being tested on the beagles or what conditions they were being kept in when asked by Metro.co.uk.

Mr Gordon said: ‘They’re not really saying anything I guess they’re just trying to weather it out. But whether or not they can do that forever in a country of people who love dogs, we’ll see.’

Mr Gordon is a regular visitor to ‘Camp Beagle’, where some activists celebrated Christmas Day just gone.

Use a plastic pitcher to store and dispense dog food. It takes less time and keeps the food fresher. I use the MUJI rice storage dispenser, which comes with a handy measuring cup.

‘We’re not leaving until the facility is shut down or MBR acres stops breeding dogs to be tested on,’ he said.

In a previous statement, Mr Gordon said: ‘Thousands of Beagle puppies are bred at MBR Acres each year to be used in painful animal testing. Their short lives will be filled with unimaginable suffering.
Protesters at Camp Beagle, outside MBR Acres in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
A permanent protest camp has been set up outside the puppy breeding facility in Huntingdon (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)
Free The MBR Beagles Protest London
Activists want the facility shut down (Picture: In Pictures via Getty Images)

‘As a nation of animal lovers, we cannot continue to let this happen. That is why we are taking a stand against MBR Acres and the companies who choose to support them.’

Head of policy and media at Understanding Animal Research Chris Magee accused protesters of a ‘national disinformation campaign’ and compared them to ‘anti-vaxxers’.

He said claims from campaigners that the dogs are ‘force fed chemicals every day, for up to 90 days, with no pain relief or anaesthetic’ are not true, pointing out that Ireland has the same testing standards as the UK.

‘Pain relief and anaesthetic are compulsory by default unless this would cause more suffering than the procedure itself,’ Mr Magee told Metro.co.uk.

‘In the event, severe suffering is highly unlikely. In practice, of around 4,200 experiments 3,200 are mild and so wouldn’t need anaesthetic whereas around 1,000 would be moderate and fewer than 10 severe, both requiring anaesthetic by law.

‘The dogs are humanely euthanised as part of the experiment, to see if their organs hide pathology that hasn’t yet become disease. They’re kept in family groups in the breeder and in the lab, also as per the law.’

Protesters at Camp Beagle, outside MBR Acres in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Police and protesters clashing at ‘Camp Beagle’ last summer (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

INTERESTING FACT ABOUT YOUR PET: There are 49 domesticated rabbit breeds recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders Association.

Comedian Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais is another high-profile supporter of the campaign against MBR Acres (Picture: Getty Images)

He added: ‘There are certain myths the animal rights people keep pedaling and we’ve believed it for ages and they just keep saying it.’

Campaigners regularly make the case that testing on animals is not as reliable as it purports to be. After all, the US National Institutes of Health estimates that over 90% of drugs fail in human trials because animal tests don’t accurately predict their safety or effectiveness.

In 2015, the organisation said: ‘Animal models often fail to provide good ways to mimic disease or predict how drugs will work in humans, resulting in much wasted time and money while patients wait for therapies.’

Although animal testing facilitated the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, a team of researchers recently said scientists worldwide ‘struggle to identify’ suitable animal models to test how the virus works.

They said there was a ‘lack of suitable in vivo models to see how the disease caused by Covid works in humans.

Last year, the European Union Reference Laboratory for Alternatives to Animal Testing said: ‘Decades of biomedical research using animal models have produced no effective cures for many prevalent and debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s, the biggest cause of dementia worldwide.

‘And among the major causes for the failure of drugs to make it to market are a lack of efficacy and poor safety profiles that were not picked up in animal studies.’

Animal welfare campaigners also point to a statement by the Food and Drug Administration in the US, who said a drug entering phase 1 testing only has an 8% chance of reaching the market.

But Mr Magee says many of these drugs will have gone through both animals and many of the other methods being promoted by campaigners as viable alternatives.

Protesters at Camp Beagle, outside MBR Acres in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
Campaigners claim animal testing is not as effective as the industry purports it to be (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)
Protesters at Camp Beagle, outside MBR Acres in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
A High Court injunction to get protesters to mover their camp from MBR Acres was rejected in October (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

Failed pre-clinical testing is the biggest single reason for drugs not making it to market, but others are pulled during human trials because they either aren’t effective or commercially viable.

It pays to be a lap dog. Three dogs (from First Class cabins!) survived the sinking of the Titanic – two Pomeranians and one Pekingese.

Mr Magee adds: ‘It’s like saying 9/10 cars that failed their MOT have working headlights, so what’s the point of working headlights?

‘Drugs for humans are tested on humans but, to protect the first human volunteers, animals will test the medicine first.

‘If a drug is safe in a dog, then in around 90% of cases it won’t harm those first human volunteers.’

UAR adds that after animal testing, phase 1 trials are to see if a drug is safe enough on humans before testing it on thousands of people at a later stage.

Last year, Metro.co.uk spoke to campaigners who are pushing for investment into a number of exciting new methods which could one day make animal testing a thing of the past.

Close-Up of beagle puppies
Beagles from MBR Acres are taken away at 16 weeks and are usually put down at six months old after undergoing experiments (Picture: Getty Images/EyeEm)
Pop star Will Young, who chained himself to the gates of controversial puppy breeding facility in protest at medical experimentation on animals.
Protesters say they won’t leave Camp Beagle until the facility stops breeding puppies (Picture: SWNS)

Much more time and work is needed before regulators consider these methods a viable alternative, rather than complimentary, but there is some hope for the future.

In 2018, researchers from the University of Oxford tested a new cardiac drug for side effects using a virtual human model with an accuracy of 89-96%, compared to 75% using rabbits. And in November 2019, a liver-chip developed by bioengineering firm Emulate managed to pick up toxicity caused by a drug called fialuridine that went undetected in animals. Last year engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, together with Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, developed a way to create tiny repilcas of the pancreas.

This could help researchers develop and test drugs for pancreatic cancer – one of the most difficult cancers to treat.

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Socialize your pet. This is especially important for puppies. Again – behavior problems are the number one reason dogs don’t stay with their families and don’t get adopted by new families. Lack of proper socialization can result in inappropriate fears, aggressive behavior, general timidity, and a host of other behavior problems that are difficult to extinguish once a dog is mature.

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