135 Lab Beagles Freed In Wisconsin; Waukesha Rescue Fields 340 Adoption Calls In 72 Hours

WAUKESHA — A Wisconsin research facility's release of 135 beagles this week has turned the phone bank at Waukesha County Animal Rescue into what Director Margaret Hutchins, 54, called "something closer to a ticket hotline than an animal shelter."

The rescue received 340 adoption inquiries between Monday morning and Thursday afternoon, compared with a normal weekly volume of 8 to 12 calls. Hutchins said the shelter's single landline, a Panasonic model she described as "older than some of our volunteers," rang continuously for eleven straight hours on Tuesday before the voicemail box filled and had to be cleared three separate times.

By Wednesday, the shelter's adoption waiting list, normally handled on a single legal pad, had been moved to a shared spreadsheet and extended to December 18th. Hutchins said the facility does not currently have, and has never had, 135 beagles on site at once, a point she has now had to clarify in roughly four of every five phone calls.

The Training Question

Staff say the overwhelming majority of callers ask some version of the same question. Intake coordinator Dale Brickner, 29, said he has personally fielded the phrase "does it have any training" no fewer than 60 times since Monday, and has begun answering with a standard script explaining that the beagles in question are laboratory-bred animals, not previously owned pets, and arrive with no obedience history, no leash experience, and in several cases no prior exposure to stairs.

One caller, whom Brickner declined to name, asked specifically whether the beagles are "already house-trained from the lab," a question Brickner said he now answers before it is fully asked. "I just say no," Brickner said. "No on the training, no on the house-training, no on the stairs. I've gotten it down to about four seconds."

"We have had people call back a second time on the same day to ask the training question again, as if the answer might have changed between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m."

— Margaret Hutchins, director, Waukesha County Animal Rescue

Two New Phones, One New Problem

To manage call volume, the rescue brought on two temporary phone operators, Sue Garrity, 61, and her nephew Tyler Garrity, 23, both paid through the end of the month out of a contingency line in the shelter's budget normally reserved for fence repair. Sue Garrity said she has worked phone banks before, for a county fair raffle and a church pledge drive, but had never experienced anything resembling the Tuesday call volume, which she estimated at one call every 90 seconds for most of the afternoon.

Tyler Garrity said he has started keeping a tally of callers who mention having seen the beagles "on the news," which as of Thursday stood at 212 out of 340, a figure Hutchins called "honestly lower than I expected."

The shelter has not yet received any of the released beagles directly; Hutchins said Waukesha County Animal Rescue is one of several Wisconsin shelters coordinating with the facility and a statewide rescue network on placement, and that it is realistic to expect somewhere between six and fourteen dogs locally, not 135.

Preparing For Arrivals

In the meantime, the rescue has begun prepping kennel space and ordering supplies, including a bulk order of the same slow-feed dog bowls (paid link) the shelter already uses for dogs with no feeding history, on the theory that laboratory beagles may not understand that food, once given, is not about to be taken away again.

Hutchins said the shelter plans to require a home visit and a written exercise plan for every approved adopter, a policy that has already prompted some callers to ask whether the process can be expedited. It cannot, she said. The waiting list, now at mid-December, is not expected to move any faster regardless of how many times a given household calls back.

"We appreciate the enthusiasm," Hutchins said. "We really do. But the dog still needs to learn what stairs are before it goes home with anybody."