How We Will Win the War on Dogs

They were killing beagles with the deadliest chemical weapon in history.

In September 2024, the grassroots animal rights organization Camp Beagle released video footage leaked from Marshall BioResources (MBR) in North Rose, NY. In the footage, which was apparently taken by an employee distressed by what she had witnessed, rows of tethered beagles thrash as they attempt to pull masks off their faces. The purpose of the procedure was to train dogs for “inhalation experiments.” Perhaps the most disturbing of these experiments involved phosgene gas, a chemical weapon that killed 85,000 people in World War I and was subsequently banned under international law. In 2015, MBR sold dogs to buyers who poisoned beagles with phosgene and watched as their lungs deteriorated. The goal was to understand what happens to human beings poisoned by the gas, whether through war or an industrial accident. Over many hours, the dogs would agonizingly drown to death, as fluid filled their lungs from the damage caused by the phosgene gas.

Dogs, naturally, do not want to accept being poisoned like this. That makes phosgene experiments difficult to manage, even for beagles (a breed of dog chosen for their docility). The training at MBR was meant to suppress the beagles’ willingness to resist. The dogs needed to learn to simply take the abuse—even if it ended with their deaths.

The phosgene experiments are just one example of what I have described as a war on dogs. And MBR is at the epicenter of that war. Tucked into a seemingly innocent hamlet in upstate New York, very few people even know the facility exists. But it is not just there. It is probably the largest vivisection facility in the world, with around 20,000 dogs—ten times the number of any other facility in the nation—and 40,000+ other animals, including cats, ferrets, and pigs.

It is the Death Star of Vivisection, inflicting more death and destruction on lab animals than any weapon on Earth.

And we are taking on the Death Star next.

RSVP for the all-rescuer Zoom on Sunday, May 31 at 3 pm ET / 12 pm PT where we’ll get your feedback on our plan to save all the dogs trapped in labs by the end of 2026.

Seizing the Moment

Just a few weeks ago, on April 18, the largest nonviolent direct action for animals in history unfolded in the Town of Blue Mounds, WI. Over one thousand rescuers descended on Blue Mounds to free beagles suffering criminal abuse at Ridglan Farms. Millions of people were exposed to the horrors of animal experimentation as videos went viral. Public outrage forced the company to release most of the dogs. But while the fight for the Ridglan dogs is not yet over—650 remained trapped in experimental protocols—the Ridglan campaign has to move now to building something even bigger: a movement to end all animal experiments, starting with the Death Star.

This is not simply because of numbers, though the numbers are massive. Half of all experiments on dogs originate at MBR, which is as large as all the other suppliers combined. Winning the fight against MBR is effectively winning the fight against all dog experiments.

And it’s not just because of the national political opportunity before us. Nick Langworthy, a local Congressmember in New York inspired by the Ridglan rescue, has personally visited MBR recently and says he wants to see the facility shut down. He is begging for our support. Now is the moment for us to provide it.

The most important reason we must take on the Death Star is that it solves the Day 2 Problem. The Day 2 Problem asks the question: How are our successes on Day 1 feeding into our successes on Day 2? And, as I have written previously, solving this problem is crucial to making change. The system of animal abuse is so big, and so subject to countervailing influence, that unless you can create feedback loops of activism, progress often disappears.

We can already see that with the Ridglan campaign. Videos that used to get millions of views are now down to the thousands. Media outlets that were knocking down our doors are losing interest in the story. Even the rescuers ourselves struggle with the daily grind of maintaining engagement with the campaign. If we do not create a surge of new energy, Ridglan could easily rebuild its cruel business the moment the world looks away from its abuses.

Taking on the Death Star will give us that surge. All we need is a plan.

Blueprints for the Next Rescue

Over the last few weeks, I and a number of the other organizers of the Ridglan rescue have been hard at work coming up with exactly that plan. And we now have an initial draft. Here are the opening words:

We are going to rescue every one of the 40,000+ beagles destined for torture or death in experiments across the US and UK by the end of 2026. We’ll achieve this by focusing on the 20,000 dogs and cats at the biggest abuser of them all: Marshall BioResources, a multinational with massive facilities in the US (New York) and UK (Cambridgeshire). Then we’ll use the momentum from beating both Ridglan and Marshall—the Death Star of Vivisection— to save them all.

Our strategy will be simple: press the politicians to enforce the law and save the dogs. If they refuse, we’ll rescue them ourselves—by mobilizing the largest rescue network in human history to peacefully descend on the Death Star one month before the November 3 election.

Every politician will be forced to face the electorate and choose: side with the puppy abusers, or the puppy rescuers. When the dust settles, they’ll side with us.

You can read the full plan and leave comments here. But you can also do something even better: join us in making it even stronger. This Sunday at 3 pm ET, I’ll be briefly presenting this plan (and some other brilliant ideas suggested by the April 18 rescuers, including a march from DC to MBR) then asking for your feedback.

We can win the war on dogs. We can save every beagle trapped at MBR, Ridglan, and cruel facilities across the nation—including the exact beagle who was thrashing in an inhalation mask in September 2024. But to do this, we need you. I hope you’ll join us.

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Other stuff

• We are looking to find people passionate about transformative uses for AI. If you’ve been following the news, you know that AI is already having transformative effects on the economy, including key industries such as software. But we have yet to see powerful use cases for social, rather than economic, problems. There is some early indication, including this report in Science, which shows how AI can significantly improve democratic decision-making, suggesting AI might have potential in this space. More generally, I’m interested in connecting with extraordinarily talented and committed folks who want to build organizing platforms from the ground up with a focus on how to deploy AI effectively. If this includes you, let me know! Here are some initial thoughts I’ve sketched out on transformative uses for AI that I’d love your feedback on.

• Speaking of which, I’m at EAG in London this weekend. Say hello! This is a conference on how to do the most good with limited resources, and animals will once again be a focus. If you’re at the conference and interested in discussing scalable change, reach out!

• One of the April 18 rescuers, Michael Freeman, penned a great op-ed on why he risked everything to free the beagles. One of the things I hope to do with the plan that will unfold over the next 5 months with MBR is to empower more folks to write pieces like this. Give it a read!

• My friend Jack Hancock has released his new documentary, The Dying Trade, about his relationship with his father, a slaughterhouse worker. Jack has some of the smartest content on animals out there, including some very important work on wild animals, and this is worth viewing.

• I should be back on a more regular writing schedule. The last few weeks have been a little crazy, with final exams, travel, and integrating James into our lives. But I’m hoping that starting this week, I’ll be publishing far more to this newsletter.

That’s all for now!