If you listened intently outside an unassuming business park in Fort Collins, Colorado you probably still couldn’t hear the frantic barking of the more than 100 beagles imprisoned inside. There—across from a sign-making shop and a church’s office—thick concrete walls dull the noise of the desperate animals confined by High Quality Research, which contracts with companies to test drugs and other products on dogs, cats, and rats.

A six-month PETA undercover investigation into the laboratory found that its veterinarian denied dogs pain relief after mutilating them in a crude attempt to quiet their barking. The company deprived dogs and cats of adequate veterinary care, leaving sick and injured animals to suffer from open wounds, inflamed skin, and eye conditions. It indefinitely warehoused dogs and cats as old as 14 years—keeping them on hand as mere commodities, ready to be exploited for a price.

For nearly 24 hours a day, High Quality Research—which also goes by the appropriately ominous name Red Beast Enterprises—confines more than 100 beagles to chain-link kennels in stark cinderblock rooms with cold tile floors—offering them nothing, not even a bed, for comfort. Dogs were denied walks and any opportunity to go outside—they were only allowed out of the kennels during cleaning but never out of the bleak, windowless room confining them.

Stressed by constant confinement and with scant opportunities for basic exercise or play, many dogs—including Aqua, Mantis, Ziggy, and Anya—were reduced to pacing or running in endless, desperate circles. High Quality Research’s president dismissed the dogs’ circling and said that some dogs were “crazy, and they do it all the time.” He admitted that the behavior was stress-related but claimed that there was “not a lot we can do about it.”

One frustrated dog, Bug, chewed continuously at the chain-link door to the kennel confining him, bending the wire out of shape. When the investigator pointed out Bug’s behavior—which can be a sign of severe psychological distress—a senior worker said that the lab was aware of it and that their solution would simply be to replace the chain-link door with a solid one.

Deprived of anything meaningful to do and with no respite from their imprisonment, the dogs barked continuously. The kennels were deafeningly loud—the noise level in one room measured nearly 115 dB on a sound meter, which is comparable to a rock concert or an emergency vehicle siren.

The lab president said that all dogs at the facility had been debarked in crude operations so that they wouldn’t be as “loud” or “shrill”—strictly out of convenience for staff. The facility’s veterinarian put forceps (intended for use in gynecology) down dogs’ throats and used the tool’s “teeth” to take what he called “a little bite” out of their vocal cords.

Experts agree that cutting dogs’ vocal cords is painful. But the lab veterinarian denied the dogs pain relief following this mutilation and said that he would cut into dogs a second time if scar tissue formed and they got “their full voice back.”

The procedure—performed simply to make humans’ lives easier—can increase a dog’s risk of aspiration pneumonia, compromise airway access during future surgeries, lead to breathing difficulties and chronic coughing, and intensify dogs’ stress levels.

Dogs weren’t the only animals denied basic needs at High Quality Research. The lab kept nearly 30 cats—some apparently for more than a decade—in barren rooms that lacked any beds, blankets, or other soft surfaces. Cats were forced to try to rest on the hard tile floor, plastic shelving units, or a few flattened cardboard boxes.

The crowded rooms held up to 12 cats at a time yet lacked sufficient hiding places for them to feel secure. Cats confined to crates for an experiment endured even greater deprivation—left without so much as a single toy for comfort or stimulation. The wood shavings used in litterboxes regularly contaminated the felines’ food and water dishes.

The cats—who, despite being bred for exploitation by a laboratory, are no different from those who share our homes—were desperate for interaction and affection. They climbed and jumped all over PETA’s investigator, competing for a shred of attention.

Many cats—including a young black-and-white cat identified only as “4316”—had chronic eye discharge for which they apparently received no care. High Quality Research’s president denied the investigator’s request to adopt one of the ailing cats until Colorado State University—which he said paid the lab a “per diem” to keep the animals—was “done with them.”

Some dogs at the lab suffered from “cherry eye”—a prolapse of the third eyelid gland, which, if left untreated, can cause permanent eye damage. The condition is a common problem among beagles, a breed often exploited for experiments due to their docile and friendly nature. But High Quality Research’s veterinarian admitted that, after about 29 years of working at the lab, he didn’t have the “skills” to replace the eyelid gland.

One dog with the condition, Kegan, squinted her affected eye, which was also cloudy and drained discharge. The veterinarian said that Kegan had an eye ulcer and that if a human had a similar eye condition, they’d be “writhing on the floor in pain.” He prescribed her antibiotic eye drops but denied her any pain relief—even though a worker said that her eye “always seem[ed] painful.”

The lab president denied the investigator’s request to adopt Kegan because he wanted to “get a fair amount of use” out of her—meaning that the facility would be paid to use her in experiments—despite her condition.

Written reports of sick and injured dogs went untouched in the vacationing veterinarian’s inbox for at least nine days. One dog, Landing, apparently received no care for open sores on his foot—which a supervisor attributed to a ruptured cyst or abscess—for at least four days during this time.

Other animals suffered from chronic conditions. App, a beagle, seemingly received no care for his obvious pain while walking, despite workers’ repeated attempts to get help for him. Two other dogs, Holt and Koala, suffered from recurrent skin inflammation, scabs, and hair loss. The lab failed to schedule employees to give animals routine afternoon treatments—including thyroid medication and a steroid for Koala’s skin irritation—on holidays.

Some dogs coughed and sneezed repeatedly, which a senior worker attributed to dust from wood shavings—intended for horses and chickens, not dogs—used to absorb waste in the kennels. She said, “They all do it,” claimed nothing could be done about it, and explained that the lab used the shavings because they were “cheap.”

While younger animals were actively used in experiments, some senior animals were perpetually warehoused despite being used for only an occasional blood draw—if they were used at all. Workers said that these animals would never be allowed to leave the facility because they were “assigned” to a client that “tend[s] to hang on to … animals forever,” as if they were nothing more than old furniture.

The client paid High Quality Research to confine senior cats indefinitely, including 14-year-old Minx. The client also continued paying the lab to kennel 11-year-old beagles Docker and Bo—whom a worker described as “falling apart”—rather than allowing them to be retired to a loving home.

Bo suffered from neck pain and walked stiffly on bowed legs. The lab veterinarian admitted that he didn’t know what treatment Bo needed and had apparently performed no diagnostics to determine the cause of the dog’s pain, claiming it would be “expensive” to do so. Docker had hypothyroidism and a golf ball–sized mass on his neck, which a worker said the veterinarian knew about for “years” but had apparently failed to diagnose accurately until the investigator brought it to his attention several times. So many of Docker’s teeth had been pulled as a result of poor dental health that his tongue flopped out of his mouth.

Both High Quality Research’s president and veterinarian hindered the investigator’s repeated pleas to adopt Bo and Docker, arguing that house-training the dogs would be too difficult and showing more concern for the investigator’s carpet and kitchen floor than for the dogs’ well-being.

The lab’s name implies that the studies conducted there are reliable, yet the facility’s poor conditions and sloppy practices as well as the animals’ unrelenting stress and underlying health issues create confounding factors that could undermine the integrity of its experimental results. A supervisor said that cats at the facility had herpesvirus, but they were still being used for experiments, possibly rendering any study results worthless. Mantis, a 3-year-old beagle, had a massive seizure and was euthanized just a few weeks after being used in an experiment testing antibiotics.

Dogs were administered experimental drugs that caused vomiting and diarrhea.

When the investigator reported that yet another dog in the study was not eating and had diarrhea, the lab president’s response was, “Oh, f***.”

At least 70 rats—social, playful animals—were confined alone in plastic shoebox-style cages with no enrichment. A supervisor said that the rats were used in an experiment related to prostate cancer—but a 2018 survey of the success rates of experimental drugs found that almost 97% of oncology drugs tested in humans had failed to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, even though they had been tested successfully in animals.

Even routine procedures were fraught with incompetence. The lab president repeatedly struggled to draw blood from dogs, penetrating one dog’s flesh with a needle up to four times. His office was similarly shoddy and cluttered with teetering mountains of old paperwork and empty plastic water bottles.