What would you sacrifice to push efforts forward on eliminating diseases? What about to make sure our products and medicines are safe, especially for our most vulnerable?

These questions lead us to ethical quagmire and, oftentimes, to the use of animals for research, testing, and experimentation. We’ve long heard the term “lab rat.” Its popularity in conversation belies an understanding that these creatures are popular subjects for experimentation. But they’re far from the only ones.

Around 40,000 dogs were used as test subjects in labs last year, according to a leading advocacy group. The most common breed used are beagles.

Journalist Melanie Kaplan adopted Hammie in 2013, a lab beagle who had been used for research for nearly four years. It led her down a years-long rabbit hole to find out more about her companion’s past. It took her to a sanctuary farm for former research animals in Wyoming, a naked mole rat lab at Boston University, and the homes of former researchers.

We discuss her book, “Lab Dog: A Beagle and His Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research.”

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