Below is the license application submitted by the puppy breeder MBR Acres Ltd to the Home Office. It explains what they intend to do to the beagles and other animals, including:
- harvesting organs to order, for sale
- draining blood for sale
- repeated partial bleeding
- full terminal bleeding (bleeding to death)
For blood MBR Acres have a live donor colony (comprising of some of the stud males or any suitable grade 2 males/females or retired breeder bitches) which may be bled up to four times a month, to a maximum of 15% of their circulating blood volume, typically from the jugular vein, these dogs may be used for several years. At the end of their useful lives, the named veterinary surgeon (NVS), will decide if they should be sold to a customer, killed, terminally bled out along with harvesting their organs, re-homed (very unlikely this is a commercial company ) or moved to another establishment.
Additionally, MBR Acres specialises in the bleeding out (or exsanguination) of dogs under terminal anaesthesia i.e. the dogs are alive for part of the procedure. When there are large orders for blood or if a customer requires fresh animal tissues or fluids e.g. liver, bile, bone, then ex-breeding, stock unsuitable for sale (some with mild congenital malformation), unsold dogs and surplus stock dogs will be used for terminal bleeding. If demand exceeds availability they may also deliberately increase breeding.
The licence states that to harvest maximum volumes and meet certain customer specifications such as ‘must be barbiturate free’ or ‘fresh and never frozen’; procedures will be carried out on live donor animals or on dogs under terminal general anaesthesia. In order to obtain maximum volume of blood for sale the preferred method is cardiac puncture, this is literally bleeding from the heart. The dogs are alive when drained of blood firstly as customers do not want contamination of euthanasia drugs but also a pumping heart ensures speed and that the last drop of blood is collected for sale.