Last week, TRS Labs — an animal research facility, a breeder of animals for research, and one of Ridglan Farms’ biggest customers — stepped forward to defend the very dog supplier under a state animal cruelty investigation and facing an upcoming vote by the Dane County Board of Supervisors. 

Why? Because if Ridglan falls, so does part of TRS’s supply chain.

The Dane County Board is preparing to vote on Resolution 2025-119, a measure urging Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (“DATCP”) to revoke Ridglan’s commercial dog breeder license. TRS doesn’t want that to happen — so, it submitted a letter to the Board, cloaking its self-interest in appeals to “science” and “veterinary medicine.” 

But TRS isn’t actually speaking for either science or veterinary medicine. TRS is speaking for itself.

This is a private, for-profit corporation that buys dogs, infects them with parasites, tests chemicals on them, then kills and dissects them — all for money. 

An enterprise that, in the name of protecting “pets”, profits from torturing and killing them.

Records obtained from DATCP confirm that TRS was Ridglan’s top customer between 2022 and the first half of 2025 — buying from Ridglan a significant number of the 613 dogs it reported exploiting in 2024, the 414 dogs it reported exploiting in 2023, and the 771 dogs it reported exploiting in 2022.

Here’s what life — and death — looked like for some “purpose bred beagles . . . from Ridglan Farms” once at TRS:

• Each dog was given a second ear tattoo for identification.
• Each dog was housed alone in a pen of “metal mesh” or “stainless steel.”
• Each dog was only offered “feed” and had their “general health” observed once a day.
• Each dog in the test group had parasites injected into their groin.  
• After 150 days, each dog was killed and cut apart to have their “cavities [] examined,” their “heart and lungs” removed” and “dissected,” and their induced parasitic infestations “collected and counted.”

TRS continues to make money harming dogs and other animals in these very ways — and it doesn’t even stop there: in addition to performing such atrocities for third-party clients (TRS is a contract research organization), it also profits from selling parasites to other labs, thereby fueling animal suffering far beyond its own walls. 

So, when TRS claims that animals are “essential” to research, what it really means is: animals are essential to our profit margin.

TRS was founded in 1980 by veterinarian John McCall, who hailed from the University of Georgia (itself a recent Ridglan customer) and set up TRS at least partly to accommodate experiments for which the University didn’t have the space.

More than 40 years later, McCall — who boasts of having been “born a researcher” — is still at the helm as President and Chief Scientific Officer. It was McCall who signed the Dane County Board submission on behalf of TRS, which — similar to other proud Ridglan Farms customer Eastern Tennessee Clinical Research — appears to be a family affair: a Gail McCall is listed as TRS’s Secretary and CEO, and a Christy McCall is listed as its CFO.

Though McCall, like all veterinarians, took an oath to protect animals — including by preventing and relieving suffering — McCall runs a business that does just the opposite . . .  as even documented by the feds.

TRS’s history includes:

• The accrual of 23 federal animal welfare violations in just four inspections, with those violations ranging from inadequate veterinary care to inadequate housing/facilities/enclosures to inadequate research supervision. Inspectors documented TRS leaving “multiple animals sick/dying”; dogs with “severely swollen muzzles, puncture wounds, seizures, and more” (including one dog having a seizure right in front of federal inspectors); and “dogs suffering from serious pathological conditions.”
• A $26,000 USDA fine after dogs at TRS were found suffering from lesions, growths, oozing wounds, severely overgrown claws, severe ‘greenish gray concretion on multiple teeth,’ etc.”

This is the track record of the entity now asking the Dane County Board to take its word about Ridglan.

TRS even claims to have “audited” Ridglan — meaning, it appears, paying a team to visit the embattled facility. (Spoiler: TRS’s hired guns didn’t take issue with anything they observed there.) 

That’s not oversight. That’s damage control — and it follows the very same playbook as AAALAC “accreditation,” which both TRS and Ridglan pay for: industry insiders rubber-stamping industry practices.

TRS closes its letter to the Board with two familiar animal research industry tactics.

First: fearmongering. 

TRS warns that adopting Resolution 2025-119 would “jeopardize veterinary care” and “threaten the future of medicine.” 

But real veterinary care — the kind rooted in the veterinary oath — is about preventing suffering, not causing it. It doesn’t require turning dogs into test subjects. It doesn’t cling to unethical, violent practices because they’re profitable. And it certainly doesn’t need for-profit companies like TRS — with their parasite colonies, caged victims, and freezers of dissected carcasses — to defend it. 

The true threat to veterinary integrity is letting companies like TRS profit from harm while hiding behind the veil of “veterinary care.”

Second: dismissal.

TRS claims that Resolution 2025-119 is driven by “inaccurate, emotionally driven information.” 

But, the evidence against Ridglan is anything but speculative — it’s documented in and by official records, firsthand reports, and sworn testimony. 

Moreover:

Compassion is not an irrational emotion, it is a prosocial behavior . . . a response to the suffering of others, and a willingness to alleviate it . . . As a prosocial mind-set and proactive behavior against suffering, the public’s increasing compassion should be seen as progress toward a more ethical society. Therefore, it is a matter of evolution in human ethics and consciousness when citizens oppose the practices of forcibly restraining, isolating, shocking, addicting to drugs, starving, infecting, burning, poisoning, brain damaging, blinding, and genetically manipulating other sentient beings, regardless of any noble goal claimed behind the practices.

So, plainly, calling the case against Ridglan “inaccurate” and “emotionally driven” isn’t an argument at all. It’s just a deflection — and a desperate one.

TRS wants you to believe that it’s worried about “pets” (the very same animals that it buys, tortures, and kills). But what it’s really worried about is what will happen if local leaders, like those in Dane County, take a stand against the violence that sustains TRS’s business model.

When FOX6 previously reached out to TRS for comment, TRS stayed silent. But now, with Dane County poised to act, TRS is scrambling to protect its interests.

Because TRS is the one in fear.
We, on the other hand, need not be.

We stand on the side of real veterinary care and ethics.

We stand on the side of all animals, including those TRS calls “pets.”

And, we stand with the Dane County Board of Supervisors — against Ridglan and its customers, and for the animals they exist to harm.

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