In this eye-opening interview, journalist Melanie Kaplan takes us behind the closed doors of animal research facilities through the lens of her powerful book Lab Dog. After adopting Hammy, a beagle rescued from a laboratory, Kaplan embarked on a cross-country journey to investigate the secretive world of dog testing and breeding facilities. With remarkable compassion and journalistic integrity, she reveals the complex ethical questions surrounding animal experimentation while highlighting the growing movement toward alternative testing methods that don’t require animal suffering.
This episode explores:
Melanie D. G. Kaplan is a longtime independent journalist whose travel and science writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and National Parks magazine. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School, a 2021–2022 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow, and a third-generation Washington, DC, native. Kaplan has lived most of her life with hounds.
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