New evidence of alleged criminal cruelty at Marshall BioResources
is now in the hands of New York authorities.

Improper killings

Barbiturate injected into the abdomen of conscious dogs

The referral alleges that a whistleblower who worked at Marshall was assigned to kill dogs by lethal injection, frequently alone and with no veterinarian present, injecting the solution directly into the abdomen. The dogs were fully conscious and had been given no sedative or anesthetic. According to the whistleblower they did not die quickly or quietly: they screamed, thrashed, and struggled in what appeared to be extreme pain, in the whistleblower’s words as if they were being “burned alive from the inside.” One dog who could not be muzzled was held down by a supervisor’s foot on his neck so the injection could be given.

A death during “mask” training

A dog died on the table

The referral describes inhalation “mask” training on a five-day schedule, escalating from five minutes in a harness to fifteen minutes with a tight-fitting mask sealed over the snout. One dog urinated and defecated in panic, thrashed and rolled — the whistleblower called it an “alligator roll” — and became tangled in the harness. The whistleblower tried to remove the mask; the dog died on the table.

Violent handling

To move thousands of dogs quickly, the referral alleges, employees threw them into transport cages “like a frisbee,” and the dogs’ heads snapped against the backs of the cages.

Concealment from inspectors

According to the whistleblower, Marshall usually had advance notice of USDA inspections, employees would “panic clean” the facility before inspectors arrived, and the mask training was not performed while inspectors were present.

Puppies smothered in food pans

In buildings with barely any heat, the referral alleges, puppies would lie down in the warm wet-food pans to stay warm and were smothered or suffocated in them. The veterinary expert report records a photograph taken inside the facility showing a dead puppy in a metal feeding pan encrusted with caked food.

Healthy dogs killed for appearance or grade

The referral alleges that many of the dogs the whistleblower was directed to kill were healthy — culled for traits with no bearing on health, such as blue eyes or a significantly kinked tail, or because a mother dog was “done being bred.” The bodies were bagged and taken to an incinerator, where the whistleblower saw them stacked in piles, on at least one occasion taller than the whistleblower, who is about five feet nine.