Concentration Camps for Dogs in 1966: Shocking Photos Exposing the Hidden Suffering of Dogs Used in Medical Research

In February 1966, LIFE magazine published an article titled “Concentration Camps for Dogs.” This story exposed a hidden and cruel business across the United States. During this time, medical research labs needed a constant supply of animals for testing. To meet this demand, a group of people known as “dog dealers” operated large, secret holding facilities. These dealers bought and sold dogs for profit without caring for the health of the animals.

Many of the dogs in these facilities were stolen pets. Thieves drove through residential neighborhoods and snatched dogs from yards and sidewalks. This practice was called “dognapping.” Once a pet was taken, it was sold to a “Class B” dealer for a small amount of money. The dealers kept these stolen pets in crowded pens with stray animals until they had enough to fill a large order for a laboratory.

Photographer Stan Wayman visited several of these farms to document the conditions. One of the most famous locations was a farm in Maryland owned by a dealer named Lester Brown. Wayman found dozens of dogs living in filth and extreme cold. The animals were starving, and their ribs were visible through their fur. Most of the dogs did not have clean water to drink or any soft place to sleep. Many suffered from diseases and untreated injuries.

The dealers kept their costs as low as possible to increase their earnings. They fed the dogs the cheapest food available, and sometimes they did not feed them at all for several days. A healthy dog was sold to a lab for roughly fifteen to twenty dollars. Because the dealers spent almost nothing on care, every sale was pure profit. The laboratories that purchased the animals rarely asked where the dogs came from.

#1 “Lucky,” an English pointer rescued from an Oklahoma fair in 1966.

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#2 This woebegone springer spaniel was one of only a handful of dogs in [dog dealer Lester] Brown’s inventory of over 100 animals that appeared to be fit. Obviously he had just got there.

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#3 Aroused by early-morning raid on his animal compound at White Hall, Md., Lester Brown confronts Frank McMahon who represented the Humane Society.

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#4 Skin and bones and not much else is all that is left of this young beagle, staked out in [dog dealer Lester] Brown’s yard. Beagles are rated by most dog dealers as a ‘hot item.’

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#5 Too weak to crawl to the frozen entrails scattered in Mr. Brown’s yard, this collie was not rescued. The humane society could fit only 28 of the worst cases in its truck.

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#6 Some of the 103 dogs on the raided property stand chained to wooden boxes. The yard is a clutter of sheds, lumber and junked cars. In foreground are frozen entrails, the usual ration for the dogs.

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#7 In the raid on Brown’s compound the police found this female dog frozen inside a box.

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#8 A dog dealer’s bleak compound, 1966.

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#9 In a shed behind [dog dealer Lester] Brown’s house, dogs, pigeons and other creatures were jammed into filthy coops. The only food in sight was the stale bread piled in a washtub.

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#10 Scene at a dog dealer’s compound, 1966.

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#11 Scene at a dog dealer’s compound, 1966.

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#12 Reds is a year-old Irish setter who vanished one day from her Philadelphia neighborhood. She was sold to a hospital in New York which cooperates with humane societies seeking the return of stolen pets. A doctor spotted Reds as such a dog and called an animal

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#13 Lucky, seen in the first picture in this gallery, regained health after being rescued.

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#14 One of 28 sick dogs rescued in raid is hoisted by Mrs. Helen Crews of Baltimore County Humane Society into a truck for trip to animal shelter.

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#15 Angered by the disappearances of their family pets in Clarke County, Va., Mrs. William Mitchell and her neighbors put up signs to discourage thieves.

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#16 Tiny is a purebred English setter belonging to G. R. Lloyd of Boyce, Va. One day last August, Lloyd found Tiny’s chain cut in the backyard. When he heard the dog was at a local pound, he set out to reclaim her, only to be told she had been stolen again. The A

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#17 He has no fancy bloodlines, but to Thomas Connollys of Newton, Mass. Lancer is the family pooch. The dog was picked up and impounded one day after delivering the Connolly children to school. After 10 days he was sold to Harvard Medical School, but during a transfer he chewed through his leash and escaped. He struck out for home, over 20 miles away — and made it. He was still wearing his Harvard School tag and the family let him keep it.

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#18 Lucky the English pointer with admirers.

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#19 Lucky on the way to his new home.

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