The activists named her Ivy. She was born last summer inside a facility in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. She had never seen sunlight. Inside this facility, she has never had a name — just a code tattooed inside her ear, the way you'd label a box in a warehouse.
Ivy is a beagle. And she was one of approximately 2000 still living at Ridglan Farms.
This week, the world watched as hundreds of people tried to get them out.
What is Ridglan Farms?
Ridglan Farms is one of the last large-scale beagle breeding facilities in the United States. Its business model is simple: breed dogs in large numbers, sell them to biomedical research laboratories. At any given time, the facility houses around 2,500 dogs — most of them beagles, most of them born into cages and destined to live their entire lives in them.
After investigations of animal cruelty and receiving over 300 violations of animal welfare standards, Ridglan agreed to surrender its Wisconsin breeding licence and stop selling dogs for research to avoid criminal charges. The facility is scheduled to close its breeding operation by July 2026. But here is the part that made activists reach breaking point: not a single dog would be released. The facility would continue to operate. The dogs would remain.
Rescue #1: What happened on March 15, 2026
On the morning of March 15, dozens of activists broke into the Ridglan Farms compound in freezing rain. They carried 22 beagles out of the facility and drove them away. Around 20 activists were arrested. One of the women who entered described what she found inside. She said you could smell the facility from a mile away. The noise — thousands of dogs howling — she described as haunting.
The beagle she carried out made it to safety. Another activist carried out Etta Harriet — but her van was pulled over by police. Etta Harriet was returned to Ridglan. Some of the beagles that made it off the farm have since been adopted. One of them was Ivy.
Rescue #2: What happened on April 18, 2026
The March rescue galvanised something. Within weeks, a second, much larger action was being organised. Plans emerged for up to 2,000 activists to attempt the largest open rescue in animal welfare history, aiming to remove thousands of beagles from Ridglan. The action took place on April 18. Tear gas was deployed. Mass arrests were made. Not one beagle was removed from the facility.
Ricky Gervais publicly backed the action, saying he was appalled that beagles are bred for laboratory experiments and calling for their immediate release.
The Envigo story: what rescue can look like
Ridglan is not the first facility of its kind to face public pressure. In 2022, the US Department of Justice served a search warrant on an Envigo beagle breeding facility in Virginia after investigators found violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Over the course of two months, more than 4,000 dogs were removed from the facility and transferred to partners for adoption. The public response was overwhelming — with more requests for adopting a dog than the number of dogs rescued.
One journalist who adopted an Envigo beagle wrote about the moment strangers saw the tattoo on his ear — a code, not a name. The response, she said, was universally shock and disgust. Having him as a living, breathing embodiment of what laboratory breeding does to dogs, she wrote, was more powerful than any article.
Ivy could be that dog. If she ever gets out.
Why beagles?
Beagles have been the laboratory dog of choice since the mid-20th century. They are medium-sized, which makes dosing calculations easier. They are even-tempered, which makes handling them safer for researchers. They are sociable, which means they are less likely to show stress behaviours that would complicate research data. And they have been bred in large numbers for this purpose for so long that the supply chain — farms like Ridglan — became self-sustaining.
The very qualities that make beagles beloved as pets — their gentleness, their trust, their expressiveness — are the qualities that made them useful to research. There is something particularly difficult about sitting with that fact.
This isn't about cosmetics. But it's not unrelated either.
It's important to say clearly: the beagles at Ridglan are used for biomedical research — medical and pharmaceutical testing, not beauty products.
But the connection exists. And it matters.
The same logic that says an animal's suffering is an acceptable price to pay for a product — whether that product is a drug or a mascara — is the logic that built Ridglan Farms. The industries are separate, but the underlying assumption is not.
The cosmetics industry changed because consumers and activists made it change. Biomedical research is slower and more complex — the regulatory requirements are different, the stakes are higher, the alternatives are still being developed. But the direction of travel is the same: researchers are developing organ chips lined with living human cells, organoids, and complex computer models that can replicate how a human body responds without using animals at all. The question is how quickly the industry moves, and how much pressure it takes to get there.
Every purchasing decision is a small vote for the world you want to exist.
What you can do
Although this is an impactful method with immediate results, there are other ways you can join the movement besides being the person who travels to Wisconsin in the rain and breaches a fence. There are smaller things, and they add up.
Stay informed. Follow the Ridglan story as it develops. The facility is scheduled to close its breeding operation by July 2026 — but whether the remaining dogs are released or simply remain in a facility that no longer publicly sells them is still unclear. Organisations like the Beagle Freedom Project and Rise for Animals are tracking this closely.
Sign the petition. The SaveTheDogs coalition (savethedogs.io) is calling on Wisconsin authorities to seize all remaining beagles per the felony cruelty ruling, drop charges against rescuers, and account for the use of force on April 18.
Support rescue organisations. The Beagle Freedom Project has been rescuing and rehoming laboratory animals since 2010. The Beagle Alliance in Canada does the same. These organisations do quiet, unglamorous, essential work. A donation of any size helps.
Make conscious choices. Not all animal testing is equal and not all of it can be avoided right now. But where it can be — in beauty, in household products — you have a choice. Use it.
A note from us
We started Cruelty-Free Babe because we believe that the beauty industry does not need to harm anyone to do its job. Every brand we carry is verified cruelty-free by sources that do the vetting so you don't have to. That is a small thing in the context of what is happening at Ridglan Farms. We know that. But small things, done consistently, by enough people, are what eventually closes facilities like it.
Today, on World Day for Laboratory Animals, hundreds of dogs like Ivy have a number instead of a name. We hope that changes. We're going to keep doing our small part to make it so.
— Cruelty-Free Babe 🌿