STOP #VIVISECTION - SIGN THE ECI !! Beagles are the dog breed most often used in animal testing, due to their size and passive nature. Beagles are used in a wide range of research procedures: fundamental biological research, applied human medicine, applied veterinary medicine, and many others... THEIR LIFE BEFORE DEATH... Buffalo, a large, soppy-eyed beagle, is taking his exercise at Huntingdon Life Sciences. For 20 minutes he and 23 other beagles are released from their 6ft x 6ft pens and allowed to trot up and down the 60ft passage that separates the cages. Buffalo grubs at a plastic bone, and nuzzles one of his colleagues before being scooped up into the arms of his handler. "Hello my lovely, my little baby," she says, staring down with eyes almost as soppy as his. She has given all the dogs names she says, but Buffalo is her favourite. Buffalo is 12 weeks into his life at Huntingdon, which has the capacity to house more than 1,000 beagles. He is used to the routine; he takes his breakfast, dosed with the substance he is here to test, at around 9am before being returned to the pen. Once an hour to a chorus of excited yelps, a technician walks the passage looking for signs of adverse reactions to the substance. Commercial confidentiality prevents HLS from revealing the nature of the substance Buffalo and co are being exposed to but it could be an agri-chemical, a drug or a food additive. Once a week Buffalo is taken out and weighed, his urine and feces collected for analysis, and once a month a blood sample is taken. In 40 weeks when the trial is concluded Buffalo will have reached the end of his useful life and will be killed with barbiturates, along with all the other dogs in the trial. This is when the real work begins. Postmortems will be conducted. Samples of all major organs will be taken, slides prepared and treated before being passed to HLS's laboratories where the effects of the substance on the dogs are assessed. Meanwhile the next round of testing will have begun. Buffalo's pen will have been hosed down and another beagle will have taken his place. This unsentimental production line is the way of animal-based research, and very few companies do more of it than HLS, Europe's largest contract research organisation. SiGN THE ECI now, at: http://www.stopvivisection.eu/ See video "Inside HLS" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player