ELLIE HANSEN, HOST:

So I always like to begin by asking this question. When did you first become aware of the fact that dogs are used for experimental research?

MICHAEL TAYLOR, GUEST:

Well, the truth is it was really just the beginning of last year. That’s when my eyes were opened up. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that the public awareness was brought about by the Envigo case. Like many of us, I thought that experiments were being conducted on rodents. And I just couldn’t believe that our taxpayer money was being spent on animal research and vivisection of man’s best friend, if you will.

HANSEN:

And you have two Envigo beagles of your own. Can you tell us the story of how you came to adopt them?

TAYLOR:

So at the time we actually had three beagles and my wife is the one that was following the Envigo story, and she’s the one that introduced the whole story to me. She really badly wanted to get a fourth beagle and add it to our family. That’s if we were able to find one that was going to be near to us. So like many of the others out there we just continuously checked the HSUS website to see if anyone’s going to be available to us in Florida which is where we live.

And once we found that there was, we started making calls. So there was a humane society in North Florida, really close to the Georgia border for reference, that was offering up some of the Envigo beagles on a Friday. And we were under the assumption that we needed to bring one of our beagles with us. So we brought our nearly all-white beagle named Libby. And unfortunately, it was a pretty long ride. And unfortunately, she got sick twice on the ride. And that prevented us from being there on time when they opened. But we ended up only being 11th in line, which would be great. Except that they only had 10 beagles up for adoption that day. So, we hung around nonetheless until the very end, just in case something fell through, but unfortunately for us all were adopted.

Before we left, we were sure to make sure that we left our contact information and reiterate how interested we were. But ultimately left feeling a little defeated. However, that just, it just filled my desire to make more calls and find other locations which we did. Found out that the Tampa Bay Humane Society confirmed that they will have 10 Envigo Beagles up for adoption in two days on Sunday. And that was all I needed to hear.

I’m not wanting to repeat the disappointment back to my wife. We left Saturday night and we camped out in their parking lot 12 hours before they opened from 10 p.m. on. I mean, think back to the Black Friday days, if you will, of that must have been what it felt like because by the time they opened the doors, that line was wrapped all the way around.

So needless to say, we were first in line and we selected a tiny nine-month-old beagle named Quentin. But the story doesn’t end there. On our nearly four-hour ride home, we realized that we had gotten an email from the original Humane Society that we wanted to adopt two days earlier, the one that we were 11th in line. And it turns out that one of their adoptions fell through. And if we wanted to get the last available beagle, we could be there when they opened on Tuesday. And even though we now had four beagles, we thought how could we say no? And we adopted Baz. So the irony of the story is that had we not taken our beagle Libby who got sick on the ride, we likely would have been there in time to adopt on Friday, never would have gone to Tampa, never would have adopted Quentin, who was actually the reason behind starting Finding Connections.

HANSEN:

Well, I totally believe in fate and things being meant to be, so thank you for sharing your personal journey here. And this journey has ultimately led you to your important work that we’re going to talk about now. As you know very well, the inner world of dog research is extremely secretive. In research breeding facilities, beagles are given tattoo numbers and or letters in their ears to identify them instead of being given names. And few people until now ever knew what these tattooed letters and numbers meant. But you really wanted to figure it out, and you did. So how did you first decide to start decoding the Envigo beagle tattoos, and why was doing this so important to you?

TAYLOR:

That’s a great question. I think back today, and I’m not sure that anybody who hasn’t adopted an Envigo beagle realizes the emotional attachment that we all have to these dogs. But at the time, I would say that it was more of a curiosity. It was more of a passing curiosity. I wanted to know, did Quentin’s or Baz’s family make it out alive too? I mean, what happened to them? Were their siblings alive? Was the sire alive, the dam? Or were they sold into a life of painful experimentation? I just had to know.

So, my regular work is I’m a data analyst. And there’s a term that we use that many might be familiar with, and it’s called garbage in garbage out. And really what it means is the quality of your output or your final product is dependent on the accuracy or the validity of the initial data that you put in. And the truth is last year, when I started to do my research to uncover this information, it was just so much misinformation out there on every aspect of the Envigo case.

So as I was trying to make sense of this, I started to compile all the information that I could, and I immediately noticed some patterns, all kinds of red flags, some outliers, things that I’ve been trying to notice over the years. It both drove me crazy, but it also fueled my desire for accuracy. So I researched and researched, and I reached out to so many places looking for help because I wanted to tackle the impossible task. It really is impossible—of trying to be able to connect all the beagles by their tattoos. And I’m not talking about just the 4,000 beagles that were part of the HSUS rescue last year. I mean, all the beagles.

So, in order to do this, I had to figure out how the tattoos even worked, because back then, we didn’t understand the difference between the official papers that were printed from Envigo’s database and the papers that we were given at the shelters. They had different information. I received in my packet information, papers from both with different date of births on. How was I to know back then which one was accurate and which one wasn’t? Not only was the date of birth wrong, the tattoo letters that we were provided on social media was wrong, they were people’s guesses. So a lot of work just needed to be done first before we could even start the project.

HANSEN:

So I’m assuming there’s a lot of mathematics and statistics involved in your job. Can you describe exactly how your skills as an analyst prepared you to decode these mystery tattoos of the Envigo Beagles?

TAYLOR:

Sure. We just touched on it briefly earlier. We talked about the amount of inaccurate data that we had back in 2022 compared to where we are today. I can’t stress how many how important that is for everybody to understand. But let me take a step back and say that back then, the media reports, whether it was print or TV, they provided so much inaccurate information. Things like the beagles were rescued from a testing lab, which we know Cumberland facility does not do. How these beagles were debarked at Envigo, which is false. The media provided articles with tattoos that provided both numbers and letters, which were never actually used.

Of course, we know all this now, a year later, but I took it upon myself and in September of last year, so it’s a year ago, I cracked the code and I posted a detailed explanation on social media of what each of the six letters represented. I’ve had to make an update since then because I’ve uncovered that code was modified slightly after the year 2008.

So in 2009, they’ve made changes to that code. So getting back to your original question as far as how I ended up going about doing this, I think originally what it was is trying to gather as much information as possible because having the codes for Baz or Quentin on itself really isn’t gonna tell me anything. I needed hundreds and hundreds. I needed accurate information.

So I reached out and called many different humane societies, shelters, to see if they would provide me assistance. And initially the results were less than stellar. But as I started putting it all together, there were red flags of things that, this doesn’t make any sense at all. This is an outlier. And then reaching out to the individual people to find out where they got the information from and –the information they provided.

It later turned out that many people were under the assumption that the code they had in the year was a guess. And sadly, unlike humans, beagles don’t live as long. So each birthday is so important. I just felt it was so important that people should know when their beagle’s actual true birthday was so you can celebrate together. And sadly, many people didn’t know that. So, I’m very proud of the fact that we’re able to provide that information to them.

HANSEN:

In 2022, as you were beginning your research, a Facebook group was formed called the Envigo Facility Beagle Rescue Adopters Group. And this group currently has close to 15,000 members, many of whom adopted an Envigo beagle or multiple Envigo beagles. And it was designed as a support group, and a way to connect these families together. You also created a Facebook group called Finding Connections-Envigo Beagles, which also aims to make connections just in a different way, more numerically perhaps. And so for those listening who don’t know what Finding Connections is…What is your mission and what are you trying to accomplish?

TAYLOR:

The Envigo Facility Beagle Rescue Adopters Group that you first mentioned is, was the very first Facebook page that I adopted, that I joined. In fact, I joined it in line waiting to adopt Quentin at Tampa. I’m actually a moderator on that page and have been for over a year. But in October of last year, I branched out and created Finding Connections-Envigo Beagles. And what I wanted was something that was totally different. I wanted it to have a specific demographic with niche clientele, if you will. So, Finding Connections-Envigo Beagles is the only site that’s out there that’s dedicated exclusively towards finding Envigo beagles families, siblings, parents, the puppies that were taken away from them too early, grandparents. We’ve found great grandparents and even great great grandparents that are out there.

But it’s more than just that. We provide advanced analytics, which is something that is very near and dear to my heart. Something we’ve been known for, tid bits of information that you’ll only find on our site. We provide health-related issues. I’ve saved the doctors thousands of dollars. And when I say thousands, that’s not an exaggeration by being able to provide them the medical paperwork that they didn’t get originally when they adopted that was needed to be provided to their insurance company to cover insurance claims.

We provide education, on the animal testing industry specifically. We just recently released a very, very detailed timeline of events, which includes the corporate mergers, the acquisitions, the history of Inotiv, which is in Envigo’s parent company based out of Indiana. Fascinating reading, and we’ll show you the history going back decades.

News…our friends at Camp Beagle in the UK recently shared with us a flight manifest. Records showed that Envigo sold beagles up until May of last year, just before the May seizures took place. And these beagles were all sold overseas to testing labs. We would never have known this had they not shared this, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act.

We provide public awareness. That’s another thing too. So our readers, I feel, are really aware of what’s going on. So they’re fully aware of the massive decline in the stock price of Inotiv recently and what’s going on with them. Charles River Labs, the SEC’s inquiry into the monkeys being important from Cambodia. This is happening right now. And this has disrupted the supply chain of their research models and sent the prices of the monkeys skyrocketing all while their stock price is barely above $3 a share as of today, the day that we’re recording this. So by comparison, the stock price for Inotiv hit an intraday high of $60 in November of 2021, just weeks after they announced the acquisition of Envigo…$60 to just over three.

Another thing too that we do is we provide a network. And what I mean by that is it might be easy to forget, but many of the people who adopted these Envigo beagles are first time beagle owners and certainly the first time for many dealing with purpose bred beagles. These beagles come with their own unique challenges. And finding a support system like Finding Connections has really helped them through that first year, greatly reducing the number of beagles that are returned and surrendered.

I will say that we’ve also provided a safe place since the site itself is exclusive to Envigo beagles adopters. There are no outsiders. We all can relate. It’s a safe place. There’s no judgment on the site. We all know that our first priority has to be taken care of the beagle itself. And I personally have had beagles surrendered and I’ve taken them in until I found them a new home. We’ve also assisted with beagles across the country and other humane societies to get them adopted.

And what we’ve found, Ellie, is that the interest skyrockets on a beagle once I know what the code is and I’m able to announce that and tag a person and say, this is your beagle’s brother or sister, or this is your beagle’s mother. We have people that have flown from Pittsburgh to Massachusetts, from Arizona to Michigan, et cetera, just to get one because of what they’ve learned on our site.

And the last thing, I do have to say this. I just want to let people know that how much I really appreciate all the places across the country that have heard about the efforts of Finding Connections to try to connect all this and put all this together. There are places out there that have provided us documentation that we needed. I am so grateful. And so this is just a quick thank you to Green Dogs Unleashed and Homeward Trails in Virginia. They were one of the earliest ones to assist us. There’s larger places like the Anderson Humane in Illinois, San Diego Humane Society, Tampa Humane Society, Midland Humane in Michigan, even PETA. So the list goes on and on for those that have helped us. So I really hope that others will hear this and will consider helping us as well.

HANSEN:

So we’ve been talking about Envigo beagles, and that’s what the focus of this episode is. But just to sidetrack for a moment, all beagles rescued from laboratories have tattoos of some sort on the inside of their ears. And so is this pattern that you’ve discovered for the Envigo beagles also applicable to dogs coming out of other major breeding facilities or laboratories?

TAYLOR:

Yes. Because Finding Connections-Envigo Beagles is exclusive for Envigo Beagles only, as the name indicates, we have had a lot of people that have requested access believing that they had adopted an Envigo beagle. There are questions that are required and one of them is to provide the code so I can help validate that they’re legit.

We have been provided with a number of different codes that turned out they actually weren’t Envigo Beagles. Initially I put that on the side and I’ve had it, I have a tremendous amount of information, but I just didn’t, I have so much to do for Envigo that I didn’t want to really open up another can of worms. But when the numbers kept coming in and in, I finally decided one day I’m going to do some research on these as well.

And yes, based on some questions that you can answer, some breeders tattoo the left ear, some tattoo the right ear, some have six digits, some have seven digits, some have four digits, some use letters, some use only numbers, some use a combination. The great thing is through all of my research and I’ve been able to decode to the point where if you were to provide a tattoo for me, I am able to confidently tell you where your beagle was at least born.

HANSEN:

That’s amazing to me that you can do that. I’ve always been personally curious about what the tattoos mean. But, some people might feel uncomfortable about sharing this information. So what are your feelings about this?

TAYLOR:

Wow. My feelings run the gauntlet of emotions from euphoria, right? The euphoria that you get when you break a code or you uncover something that’s been bothering you for months that no one knew but now you understand why.

The sadness. Sadness, a lot of times when I’m entering the data into the database and I receive packets of codes of beagles that are no longer with us.

To anger, right? Anger when I obtain the documents or videos or information explaining what was done to them in the labs for experiments.

To confusion and disbelief. Sometimes I’m just confused how the human race can do this to animals and then later try to justify their actions.

Helplessness. I feel helpless sometimes when the change doesn’t take place as quickly as I want it to take place or I hear lobbyists watering down bills.

To being inspired, right? Inspired when I read books and see movies and documentaries and I find out what others have done that have made a difference and have changed rules and laws.

To joy. The joy I get when I educate others and I openly get people tell me, this is great. I’m in public right now and I’m openly weeping. I’m so happy I’m crying.

The unconditional love, the hugs, the kisses, the snuggles you get from your beagles. I’ll tell you this, Ellie, there’s no human I’ve ever known that is so happy to see me when I walk into a room. Nobody.

So, one of the things I do want to say is that recently on our site, multiple members joined in and canceled their subscription to Chewy. And that’s because they decided not to take a stance on the fact that they sell products from Marshall Bioresources, MBR for short. All the people that ended their subscription told them specifically why. And screenshots were shared showing their corporate response saying that they do not get involved with politics. But to many, including myself, the lack of action is their statement…is getting involved. To me, I think of it as the company’s putting their financial gains ahead of selling products from the MBR and doing what’s morally right.

I like the company a lot. I hope one day they change. This is not a knock on Chewy because there’s others out there as well. I really do like them, but I can’t right now in good conscience show support for a company that puts that financial gain ahead of doing, but I think is morally right.

HANSEN:

I think most people are not aware of this fact about Chewy supporting Marshall by selling products Marshall produces. And for those who don’t know, Marshall is the largest breeder of dogs for research in the U.S. and possibly abroad.

TAYLOR:

There’s a quote I think about often and it’s a quote by Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of PETA, and she said it right on this very podcast Ellie. It’s one of your earliest podcasts that I listened to and her quote was, “It’s no good to spend $100 on animal protection groups and then spend $1,000 over a period of time for goods that someone else is hurting animals to produce.” That’s a powerful message. And we as consumers can affect changes and decide who does and does not get our money.

HANSEN:

Wise words to live by for sure… so thank you. And I believe you just completed a very exciting project. So I was hoping you could tell us more and what the outcome was.

TAYLOR:

Happy to do this. So yes, the project you’re referring to is based on the fact that I grew up in the early 80s and music and early MTV when they played videos and AOR radio had a big impact on me. So one program, that I looked forward to every weekend was Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. So Finding Connections put together like their own spin on this classic radio show. And we just completed the Top “40 Oldest Living Envigo Beagles” known as of September 1st of 2023. So in this process, we would count them down daily and feature beagles that we’ve been able to reach out to their adopters and the adopters provide us some great photos and some insights and stories in their own words. And it culminated with the announcement of Hammy, who not coincidentally was announced the night before his 14th birthday.

Hammy is a former test lab beagle and was adopted by journalist Melanie Kaplan. The two of them have traveled across the United States together and we have included all kinds of links and stories and pictures of him over the years.

Hammy and George, who was number two, were actually just born five days apart. And I can’t go without saying that they’re perfect examples to me of beagles that have lived for now over a decade since they were released. In fact, Melanie right now is working on a book about dogs that are used in research over the years, and it’s tentatively titled Science and the Hounds, and I’d like to invite everybody to follow Hammy on Finding Connections.

HANSEN:

Okay, we’re going to switch gears here for a few minutes and we’re going to do a bit of Envigo Beagle Trivia. I’m going to ask you some pretty challenging questions about the beagles of Envigo and you’ll answer. So, are you ready?

TAYLOR:

Okay. Sure thing. Sounds like fun.

HANSEN:

What is the most common female name given by adopters to their beagle?

TAYLOR:

That switches back and forth. It used to be Daisy. But recently, I think Lucy is overtaking. So I’m gonna go with Daisy and Lucy.

HANSEN:

What is the most common male name?

TAYLOR:

That’s an easy one. Definitely Cooper.

HANSEN:

How many states did the Beagles go to as part of the Humane Society of the United States rescue?

TAYLOR:

Twenty-nine different states were involved and last count over 160 individual locations adopted out Envigo Beagles.

HANSEN:

Which state received the most beagles as part of the Humane Society of the US Transfer?

TAYLOR:

Definitely California number one, with Virginia coming in second.

HANSEN:

Who was the oldest beagle rescued from Envigo, and where did he or she end up going?

TAYLOR:

I love this question. So the oldest beagle was born March 30th of 2014. And the beagle’s name at the time was Chrissy. She has been renamed Izzy, and she went to Cage to Couch in California via Priceless Pet Rescue.

HANSEN:

Of the beagles you have on file, do you know if there are adopters in all 48 continental states?

TAYLOR:

Believe it or not, I have confirmed adopters in 47 of the states. There’s one state that I don’t have one. I’m not saying that one doesn’t exist, but if you adopted Envigo beagle and you live in Utah, please reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you.

HANSEN:

What age were the tattoos given to the beagle’s ears at Envigo?

TAYLOR:

Definitely at six weeks.

HANSEN:

Which gender did Envigo have more of at their Cumberland, Virginia facility, males or females?

TAYLOR:

55% were actually females and only 45% of the inventory that they had was males. The majority of them were sold were actually males so they kept the females along to be able to breed more.

HANSEN:

What year were the majority of the Beagles released born in?

TAYLOR:

Actually 2021. Keep in mind in 2022, the facility was closed down halfway through the year. If you were to combine 2021 and 2022, 79% were born in the last 18 months. So 2021 is your answer, but only 21% were born before 2021.

HANSEN:

What percent of the 4,000 beagles that were transferred by the Humane Society of the US have you been able to locate so far?

TAYLOR:

We have been able to identify only 52%, which means there’s a lot of work still needs to be done.

HANSEN:

Final question. How old is the oldest living Envigo beagle that you know of?

TAYLOR:

That would be Hammy. And Hammy just turned 14 years of age.

HANSEN:

I just love hearing about how people are contributing to this effort. It’s like you’re unravelling mysteries for people and bringing information into the light which might otherwise never be shared because you care so much about these dogs and their adopters and this whole issue. So that’s how I see your work. And looking more deeply at this, we’re actually talking about beagle’s lives here…things about them that we aren’t supposed to know…and as an Envigo beagle adopter myself, I can vouch for the fact that it’s a highly emotional journey.

TAYLOR:

I feel the same way you do. What I’ve noticed though is that I started to introduce like how a beagle passed away. Okay. Saying that this beagle was sold to Kansas State University, for an example, right? And all of a sudden people started jumping on this one. Right? I even put the date they were purchased…the date they were euthanized.

I have other universities I started putting in there, and I realized really quickly that people say they have thick skin but they couldn’t handle it. So I had to back off really quickly. So what I found that I have to do is bring them in for the connection aspect of it first, and then try to slip in the education the awareness and get people to make changes in their life. Changing their spending habits. Changes altogether.

HANSEN:

I’ve adopted three former research beagles. One of them was named Marty. He sadly passed away this June at the age of 15. You asked for his tattoo number and I gave it to you. And it was super faded because, you know, he was in a laboratory for six years and by age 15 it had faded quite a bit more. But, you were able to tell me where he came from…where he was born. It was not Envigo, and I’m not going to reveal any details here, but you were able to tell me exactly what breeding facility he was born into. And that was incredibly emotional for me. I remember bursting into tears when you messaged me, just imagining him in such a horrible place. And then him going to an even more horrible place in pharmaceutical lab before he finally ended up in a rescue.

And so you provide us with information as to, where they came from. Their past essentially…which can be so painful to hear. For me it wasn’t like “Happy Birthday Marty!” It was more like, “Oh my God, you were born in this horrible place. What must you have gone through.” It’s just…there’s something painful about that, but then there’s also hope at the end of it.

TAYLOR:

Yeah, and to your point, I mean, I can’t tell you how many people have told me they’re just openly weeping and crying both tears of joy and that pain. But a lot of the joy comes from when they find out. I’ll give you an example. I found out, I know where Quentin’s mother is. Quentin’s mother is in Los Angeles. He was adopted by a great fellow and I said to him many times, I will get on a plane. I will go to California and I will personally drive her home to reunite with Quentin. It doesn’t even matter the cost. I’ll take care of it. It means that much to me.

And I don’t think people understand. But when it comes to my beagle and everybody else’s as well, I was able to uncover that all of Quentin’s siblings made it out. I know where they went to. I may not ever see them, but it’s just that the weight of the world is off my shoulders knowing that they got out as well. They weren’t sold into a life of painful experimentation and euthanized at the end.

HANSEN:

So now I’m curious to know about my own Envigo beagle Cedric. He’s two years old now. And you’re making me wonder…did his brothers and sisters make it out alive? Adopting research beagles is unique in that we’re purposefully given little to no information about them.

TAYLOR:

You know, and to your point, and this is what a lot of the shelters did not understand when I originally approached them, is that they said, why do you need this? I mean, we get strays that come in all the time and nobody asked for all of this stuff. And they’re right. But there is a part of us that we don’t assume that a stray or something that came in was being sold to run a treadmill until they collapsed. You know what I mean? This is totally different. We know how badly they’ve been treated, how their fate could have turned out. And there’s such unconditional love that we all have with these beagles. We’d do anything for them just to give them the best life possible. And so, yeah, it’s emotional. It’s really emotional and it means a lot.

And that’s what drove me to actually want to find this information. I just, I had to know. And I didn’t talk about all of the early days, but there was so much information, Ellie, it was driving me crazy. I mean, what I didn’t tell you is it’s not something I’m saying I’m going to be super proud of. But if it wasn’t for my wife, we wouldn’t be here today because I took the whole entire month of December off from work. I have a lot of vacation time and I’ll be doing the same thing this year as well. During that time, I’d get up in the morning and just work until midnight every single day, seven days a week. There was one month I left the house once. And that’s because I’m the chairman of 1154 homes and I had to run a board meeting. And when that was over, I came back and went right back to work on this.

And when I went back to work in January, I worked from nine to five. And when five o’clock ended, I just stayed up here in my office and worked until midnight. She took care of everything. She fed me, would bring up my food and take my tray away. She did all the laundry. She took care of all the bills. She did all the cooking. She did all the cleaning. She took care of the beagles when I was on important calls. Again, that was the sacrifice that I made when I wanted to get this thing rolling because the information was inaccurate. And without it being accurate, we have nothing. Garbage in, garbage out.

And today I am supremely confident. I can tell you that when you apply to my site, we ask for information upfront. Almost every single one of those, I actually already have your information.

HANSEN:

We’ve been primarily talking about Envigo beagles here, but if there’s somebody listening who really wants to know what their beagle’s tattoo means, even if their beagle didn’t come from Envigo, would you still encourage them to reach out to you?

TAYLOR:

Absolutely, Ellie. First of all, I realize that not everybody is on social media and not everybody is on Facebook specifically. Anybody can reach out to me at ENVIGOBEAGLES@ATT.net. I work with many people, including somebody who has an beagle in Germany that adopted.

We have people on Reddit, we have people on X, the former Twitter, we have people on Instagram. They have people that just aren’t on any social media. If you have a beagle that has an ear tattoo, whether it’s the left ear or the right ear, and you just would like some more information, we can work privately via email, and I’ll be happy to share this information with you.