LONDON—Two whistleblowers have come forward to expose disturbing dog experiments at a secret animal lab inside St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. They describe brutal experiments conducted on dogs, and the hospital’s efforts to hide them from staff, patients, and the public.
According to documents and direct observations the whistleblowers shared with Animal Justice, the dogs are used in heart failure research. They are surgically fitted with snares that induce prolonged heart attacks that can last up to three hours by choking off blood flow. Some dogs do not survive the procedure. Those who do face prolonged suffering afterward.
“That is the most traumatic thing I’ve ever seen. It’s 24-7 constant whimpering,” said whistleblower Alex (a pseudonym to protect their identity). The whimpering was clearly audible in a video provided to Animal Justice. The whistleblowers describe traumatized dogs picking at their incisions, removing stitches, and displaying other apparent “stereotypies”—repetitive, abnormal behaviours often brought on by the stress of confinement.
“Like, [one dog] would completely submerge her face inside her water bucket and then repeatedly do that over and over again until one of us gave her attention,” said Alex, who added that the dog’s cries “would not sound like regular dog cries. They would sound like a human screaming. It was really hard to hear.”
“[Another dog] was just running in circles around her enclosure. When you cleaned it, it was basically painted with fecal matter, instead of just a pile of feces on the ground, because she would run through her own feces, jump on the walls, jump on the gate, and get it everywhere, and not even have a clean surface to lay on anymore,” said Jesse—a pseudonym for the second whistleblower. “Some dogs will also suck on the tips of their tails until the fur is gone.”
Dogs Are Later Killed
According to the whistleblowers, after a painful recovery from the procedure, the dogs are used in further tests and ultimately killed, with their bodies stacked inside a barrel in a freezer until it’s nearly overflowing. They describe how the dogs are purchased from a US breeder and delivered to the hospital in secrecy under the watch of security guards. Lab windows are covered with garbage bags or sheets to prevent patients and staff from witnessing the arrival of animals, and music is played to drown out the sound of barking in elevators.
“We are doing this groundbreaking research that is ‘100 percent necessary,’ yet we are not allowed to talk about it with anyone,” Alex said. “We’re not even allowed to throw a bag of animal food into the normal trash. It has to be concealed.”
“If you need to keep it a secret, it’s wrong,” said Jesse.
According to the whistleblowers, the dogs are scanned in the MRI machines that could be used by patients, and pigs and rodents are also subjected to cruel tests in these hidden labs.
“They take these pigs and they put a number of holes, I think more than a dozen on their back. They’re very large holes,” said Alex. The pigs, who are highly social animals by nature, are forced to live in isolation before they are killed, according to the whistleblowers.
Scientific Experts Call for Animal-Free Alternatives
With the US National Institutes of Health recently ending dog experiments on its own campus, Canada’s leading expert in non-animal medical research says experiments like those conducted at St. Joseph’s could potentially be replaced by more humane alternatives that yield superior data.
“Dogs and humans differ significantly in cardiac anatomy and physiology. Scientists around the world are advancing heart failure research, drug development, and diagnostic imaging with cutting-edge animal-free technologies to accurately capture the complexity of human biology,” said Dr. Charu Chandrasekera, founder and executive director of the Canadian Institute for Animal-Free Science.
“Elsewhere, researchers are refining cardiac imaging with MRI and PET scans from human volunteers, paired with advanced algorithms and simulations—bringing us closer to understanding the real human heart in health and disease,” Dr. Chandrasekera said. “We have a scientific and ethical obligation to replace and reduce the use of animals in research. Simply saying ‘we can’t do it without animals’ isn’t due diligence—it’s a failure of imagination and scientific rigour.”
Animal Justice has urged the hospital to release the dogs for adoption instead of killing them, and has secured homes for the dogs via the Beagle Alliance, a Canadian organization that specializes and has expertise in rehoming animals used in research.
“The Beagle Alliance has successfully helped place over 100 former research beagles into caring homes after study, and is ready to assist with rehoming in any way we can,” said Lori Cohen, founder and executive director at the Beagle Alliance.
Animal Justice has also worked to find homes at farm sanctuaries for pigs subjected to experiments at St. Joseph’s.
“It’s shocking to learn what’s happening to dogs and other animals at St. Joseph’s secret animal lab,” said Alanna Devine, lawyer and director of campaigns at Animal Justice. “These dogs have endured heartbreaking suffering, and they deserve a second chance at life in a loving home rather than being ‘sacrificed’ in a laboratory, with their bodies stuffed into a freezer. St. Joseph’s should do the right thing and release the surviving dogs, and embrace modern, humane science that doesn’t require animals to suffer.”
In the wake of these revelations, Animal Justice has launched a new whistleblower tip line to help expose hidden cruelty in research labs, farms, and other facilities where animals are at risk.
The federal government doesn’t regulate or oversee the use of animals in research and testing. Instead Canada relies only on the guidelines set by the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), a private non-profit organization with no legal authority or law enforcement powers that operates without public oversight.
The CCAC only conducts pre-announced visits to laboratories every three years, and institutions in the private sector are not required to have CCAC certification.
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