The director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, announced on Monday that the agency will be closing its final beagle research lab. This decision marks the end of contentious experiments on beagles at the NIH campus, experiments that have been associated with Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a report by RedState.
To celebrate this positive development, we reached out to a couple in Virginia who were pioneers in adopting and rescuing Beagles from the Envigo lab in Virginia. This same lab was spotlighted in a deeply upsetting undercover investigation by PETA. Be warned, the details of the pups’ mistreatment are distressing.
For full transparency, I must disclose that these admirable individuals are my family members. My sister, Vickie Sipes, along with her husband, Danny Sipes, are both employed in Washington, D.C., and reside roughly an hour west of the nation’s capital.
They talked about their pups’ journey from those experimentation labs, to the adoption when they brought home not one but two beagles they named Max and Darby. Also, about the challenges they went through rehabilitating the puppies, and how these two lovable dogs became a wonderful part of their family and found their forever homes.
For those that might not remember, an undercover investigation discovered the cruel experiments being done on Beagles by the NIH labs run by Fauci, RedState reported. Some of the painful medical experiments being performed on the pups can be found here and are truly heartbreaking.
In 2022, RedState also reported on the massive rescue of 4,000 Beagles living in “deplorable” conditions at the facility in Cumberland, VA. That year, a federal judge approved a request by the Justice Department and the Humane Society to remove them. The puppies were sent to animal shelters across the country to find homes.
Danny said it was after seeing the story on their local news about the rescued beagles from the VA lab that they decided they had to help. He admitted they were just going to get one, but said when they saw how Darby wouldn’t leave Max’s side, they ended up adopting both pups that day.
“We had a void in our house,” Sipes said, after losing their two sweet dogs in the same year, just months apart. “We didn’t think we wanted dogs again. But we fell in love with them. Just so happened we got two of them.”
“Our previous dogs had a hound-beagle mix,” he added. “We saw the story, but no information about how to adopt them. So, I reached out to a friend who was connected in the animal humane society world, and she told us about a center in Calvert Beach where the first batch of puppies would be sent.”
Danny recalled making the two-hour-plus trip from their home and arriving to find a pen full of similarly aged beagles.
“So, when we were allowed to sit in the pen with them, some were crawling in the corner that wouldn’t come out … other Beagles were extremely aggressive,” Danny said. “And we got to know them (Max and Darby), and we chose both. We knew it was going to be a challenge, just didn’t realize how big of a challenge it was going to be. A lot of the beagles were in pretty bad shape.”
Darby was 6 months old and Max was 5 months old at the time of their adoption. One of the pictures they sent showed the tattoo on Darby’s ear. He talked about how the Envigo pups’ left ears were tattooed at a very young age.
“They had no names, just a number,” Danny said, quoting a phrase from the popular 60s TV show “The Prisoner,” “I Am Not a Number; I Am a Free Man,” or beagle, in this case.
“When we brought them home, it was very hard. Their behavior was very unpredictable,” he added. “We ended up hiring a board and trained dog specialist. He basically reformed them.”
“They didn’t understand commands like a normal dog would,” Vickie added. “So, the training was a really big thing for them. At first, they didn’t even cuddle, but slowly but surely, they learned trust. All I wanted to do was give them love. To think about everything they went through, all we wanted to do was take care of them.”
Danny said, “Max had it harder. The Beagles in the lab had to fend for themselves. Food wasn’t just given to them. They had to fight. Some of them didn’t even get to eat. Some of the smaller pups got trapped underneath the cage and died.”
The couple said they were never scared or worried about whether their pups would be okay; they just knew they had to try. Danny said that they “never really got the background” on Max and Darby, but added that “you can tell that Darby was in a different area than Max.”
“We got to know others who rescued these Beagles from Envigo and some of the things we have learned is that barkers were kept in a separate area,” he added, noting the Facebook group they found for owners of surviving puppies called “Finding Connections-Envigo Beagles.” “We’ve learned barkers like Max were audibly tortured. Max has a lot of PTSD.”
It’s all been a learning experience for Max and Darby because, he said, they “were subjected to living on gravel on grates, being raised in a warehouse environment. We got them home and they had never seen or felt grass before. No idea what that was like. They tiptoed through the grass. They never got to be a dog.”
Looking back on the last three years, Danny said Max and Darby are still learning about new things every day, things like what a creek smells like and the existence of birds and bumblebees.
“Bringing them out of such a bad situation. It’s one of those things you don’t seek out for that, you’re rescuing these puppies,” Vickie said, talking about how much joy they have brought to their family ahead of the three-year adoption anniversary.
“We love them,” Danny added. “They are definitely calming down. Beagles are chill dogs. They are lap dogs. And we’ve noticed them calming down a lot more.”
“Now they love sleeping on their backs,” he added, noting the outward sign they are finally leaving their past where it belongs. “When dogs sleep like that, they have let it go and feel safe.”
