Earlier this month, Tails Together welcomed six female Ridglan Farms rescue beagles to the shelter here in Evanston.
The backstory:
Following months of activism calling for the release of beagles from inhumane conditions at Ridglan Farms, a breeding facility that sells beagle puppies to clinical research centers for lab testing, 1,500 beagles were released to Big Dog Ranch Rescue to be distributed to rescues around the country for a fresh start at life.
These beagles had spent their entire lives in cages, standing on metal grates, never knowing there was life outside their four walls. As incredible as their hard-fought freedom is, it’s also overwhelming for them as they approach this grand new life and learn there is nothing to fear anymore.
Their first day:
We received all females from Ridglan Farms. As the mothers forced to have litters back to back to back, females have the most traumatizing experience at a breeding facility. We named them after strong and celebrated Bravo ladies: Lindsay, Naomi, Ciara, Salley, Madison, and Paige.
After an initial evaluation from our vets, all six beagles were placed with patient, loving fosters to experience living in a home for the first time ever.
Providing space to heal:
Care from the entire Tails Together team is guided by fear-free principles. Beagles are bred for lab testing because they are docile and forgiving animals, and they will forgive their abusers. Because they always had to accept the negative interactions forced upon them, it was important to give them autonomy and choice for the first time in their lives.
This included a “3-second rule” in which staff and volunteers would show affection for three seconds and then pull away to allow the dog to decide if they wanted more of an interaction or not. This allowed them to have new experiences in amounts that weren’t overwhelming, and gain confidence to ask for what they want going forward.
Rescues like this come with unique challenges, so to share our training and behavior expertise, we offered a series of free webinars for other rescues, fosters, and adopters who were taking in Ridglan Farms beagles so they would be able to interpret body language successfully and make the same great progress we were seeing here.
Meet the girls:
Each one of the girls has their own unique, individual personality, they’d just never had the opportunity to explore what that meant or express themselves. But coming to Tails Together and having that ability for the first time, it was fascinating to see the different ways they approached this new life.
Madison was by far the most open and social of the bunch. She quickly learned she loved belly rubs and figured out how to request them from her visitors.
Lindsay on the other hand – she would tremble around people, but she was the first to play with a toy! And Salley, a cautious girl that didn’t understand beds or toys, was the bravest on walks. Once she got started smelling everything green, there was no stopping her. Where the other girls were too daunted by leaving the parking lot that first day, Salley took us all the way around the block.
Naomi arrived with dermatitis and sores on her feet from a lifetime spent standing on a metal grate, so we weren’t surprised that she was quick to any soft spot to curl up in and anxious for love. She came with an open heart which we could immediately fill with love.
Where they are today:
To our delight, just days into their foster stays, Madison, Lindsay, and Naomi had already won the hearts of their foster families forever. And while their adoptions were moving forward, Salley, Ciara, and Paige all had successful adoption meetings to find families of their own!
Ciara, the most scared and shut down of the bunch, found a beagle-filled home in the suburbs with a family that had adopted one of the rescued Envigo beagles, another breeding facility that was shut down in 2022 for inhumane conditions. After he passed earlier this year, they wanted to rescue a Ridglan Farms beagle in his honor. This meant Ciara was in excellent, prepared hands, with a family that had experience with exactly this kind of decompression and helped a dog come out the other side to see how amazing life was meant to be.
These last two weeks in foster homes have provided their first snuggles, their first sunbathing sessions and backyard sniffs, their first toys, and most importantly, their first loving families. Thank you to all who stepped up to support their care and helped us create six success stories!
