Taking Care of Yourself: Free Beagie

Happy Thursday, Positive Animal Caregivers! ♡🐾

Rescue can feel like a cycle — intake, rehab, adopt — repeating without pause. It’s easy to lose sight of what that cycle is doing, one life at a time.

This week, I was reminded of that when Janus, one of our dogs, found a forever home.

How was your week? Did you find a moment, even briefly, to step away from it?

For the next few minutes, this can be that moment.

Animal caregiving has a way of compressing everything — the good moments, the hard ones — into the same day. Before moving on, let’s pause and check in —

Add a note if you want (I read them all)

For the past month, I have been consumed by the beagle rescue mission that unfolded at Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin.

I once met rescued lab beagles in a Korean shelter. They shivered and defecated when strangers approached. At the time, I didn’t know why.

I only fully grasped later what their lives had been. Most laboratory beagles don’t have names. They have numbers. Their vocal cords are often removed so they cannot bark. They undergo surgeries without general anesthesia. They are euthanized in front of each other. Most die young, and those who survive still face near-certain death. Only on rare occasions does someone step up to adopt them.

Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an animal rights group, has been fighting the case since 2017. The story broke into wider view on March 15, when dozens of people trespassed into Ridglan Farms to rescue the beagles. The group saved 22 dogs that day, though it came at a cost: dozens were arrested, including Alexandrea Paul, an actress known for her role in Baywatch.

This ignited the next stage of the movement. DxE called on people to "use every nonviolent means to breach the facility walls and rescue the dogs," and more than 1,000 people travelled to Dane County, Wisconsin on April 18.

The protesters, ready to enter the premises to save the dogs, fought against tear gas and rubber bullets. They had to retreat eventually — many were arrested — without rescuing a single animal. "I just feel defeated," activist Julie Vrzeski told the Wisconsin State Journal. It looked as if the mission to save the beagles was going to end in failure.

But a major twist came this week: Big Ranch Rescue, a cage-free, no-kill dog rescue in Florida, agreed to an arrangement with Ridglan Farms to purchase 1,500 of its beagles. The publicity surrounding the protests had made the cost of business as usual too high to bear.

It’s tempting to look for a single turning point in a story like this — the break-in, the protest, the deal. But none of them, on their own, would have been enough. The activists applied pressure, forcing the issue into public view. The rescue negotiated a way through. And what comes next — the slow work of rehabilitation — will determine whether any of it lasts.

What comes next? Five hundred beagles remain at Ridglan. The others are now being transported to shelters and rescues across the country. For them, the work is slow: learning to climb stairs, to walk on a leash, to exist in a world that once overwhelmed them.

This part rarely draws a crowd. It doesn’t make headlines. But it is the part that lasts.

That’s the estimated number of animals used in research and testing around the world each year, according to the RSPCA.

Add a note if you want (I read them all)

Mark your calendars for these upcoming opportunities to connect with others:

Here are the ways to recharge this week. Pick ONE small thing that makes you smile. You’ve earned it. 

Listen: “Fly Like An Eagle,” a 1976 classic.

Watch: For the Birds, a Pixar short film featuring a group of angry birds.

Write: A few lines in your gratitude journal. This week’s prompt: Mundane, but worthy.

Appreciate: A beautiful piece of art. This week’s artwork: Casper Netscher’s A Woman Feeding A Parrot.

Try: Find out if your city has an official bird.

Leave me a comment.

Know someone who'd like this? Refer a friend here.

Have wins, happenings, or want us to highlight a colleague? Reply to this email and I'm on it.

Want to help me keep this community going? Sponsor this newsletter by buying me a coffee.

Hit reply and let me know if you have any comments.

Thanks for spending part of your day with me and the rest of the Positive Animal Caregivers Club. Take care of yourself this week. Remember - even superheroes need naps. 

– Philip