Two months with two laboratory beagles

The Adorables chase each other and bounce off the couch

Today is our two month anniversary with our beagles Moxie and Huckleberry, who were saved from a life as research (and abuse) subjects in Professional Laboratory Services in Corapeake, NC after Peta did an undercover video. To recap: The lab closed a week after the video in September and 200 beagles and 50 cats were sent to shelters up and down the east coast. We adopted our guys from Associated Humane’s shelter on November 13. They are settling in, getting used to sleeping in a bed, wearing collars, eating delicious food and gradually learning not to eat all the crap they find on NYC sidewalks.

We drove them to Illinois for Christmas, where they got to play in their first snow (loved it!), meet the other people and dogs in the family (loved them!) and try big pieces of meat (loved it!). In fact, their theme song might be Pat McCurdy’s I Love Everything. The only thing they didn’t like was the start of the drive. They were both extra anxious. Their only other automobile experience had been moving from one home to the next, so we think they feared they were leaving us. Once they got used to the idea that we were just going from one place to another place to frolic, they slept on our laps.

We’ve still got a long way to go with training. They are not yet free range beagles in the apartment. It’s like they’re having their second puppyhood. In Illinois we went to the absurdly,  huge Lakewood dog run (68 acres–that’s roughly the first 5 blocks of Central Park, everything from 59th Street up to the zoo). Huckleberry confirmed our fears: he is a flight risk. He just took off. It’s fenced in so we did catch him. After two other beagles from his lab got hit by cars, I’m constantly worried. I make him wear an absurd orange, fluorescent, lighted, reflective get-up at night in case he ever escapes; he looks like a little road construction worker.

What is amazing is how sweet and happy they are. Huck only barks when he wants to get another dog to play. Probably our favorite development in the last month is that they both will spontaneously like to climb up on us to cuddle. They have gone from jumping in fear when we dropped treats, thinking we were throwing something AT them, to rushing to get their mouths on any object we accidentally drop, assuming we are giving them a delicious treat.

Read more about Moxie and Huckleberry

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