The Indiana veterinarian formerly responsible for animal care at Envigo’s massive beagle-breeding facility in Virginia pleaded guilty to animal cruelty in a Virginia court on May 4.
Dr. Dawn Marie Gau pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor charges brought over dogs seized “with very severe dental disease requiring surgery that could only be performed by a veterinarian.” In exchange, prosecutors dropped an additional 10 cruelty charges, including those brought over problematic euthanasia procedures and failure to treat dogs’ medical issues properly at the facility owned by Envigo, an Indianapolis-based company.
Gau was sentenced to seven years of probation and remedial education. Her license to practice veterinary medicine in Indiana remains active at the time of publication. Gau’s Virginia license expired in 2022.
She served as the attending vet at the Cumberland, Virginia compound until about a month before the Department of Justice seized it in 2022. More than 4,000 beagles, slated for use as pharmaceutical test subjects, were sent to shelters throughout the country.
On June 24, 2025 — just over one year after Envigo agreed to pay the largest fine ever levied under the Animal Welfare Act — a Virginia grand jury indicted Gau on 17 counts of animal cruelty in connection with her tenure at the facility.
Before the facility closed, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors had cited Envigo’s Cumberland facility for several violations during Gau’s tenure, including dogs’ dental disease, untreated medical issues and unexplained deaths. Inotiv, Envigo’s parent company, has more than 22 locations in North America and Europe, according to its website.
According to a licensing complaint filed with the Indiana Attorney General days after her indictment, video covertly recorded by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showed Gau surgically lancing a puppy’s abscessed leg without anesthetic and injecting euthanasia drugs into a dog’s chest without verifying that the needle was in the dog’s heart. Gau was not indicted on the first accusation and the latter was dismissed.
PETA also alleged that under Gau’s supervision, employees with no veterinary credentials performed invasive, painful procedures and euthanized conscious dogs.
In a legal motion, Gau’s defense argued that Virginia was attempting to prosecute her for the company’s failings and improperly charged her with other employees’ conduct. The filing highlighted that Gau had written specific instructions for staff ordering sedation before euthanasia.
“In short, (Virginia) has made Dr. Gau its sacrificial lamb in seeking to punish her for the crimes of others, as well as for the failings of Envigo more broadly, while outsourcing important law enforcement functions to PETA and improperly adopting the organization’s flawed investigation and policy preferences,” her legal team wrote.
Gau, who resides in Indiana, disclosed the criminal case when she renewed her veterinary license in 2025, according to meeting minutes from the state’s licensing board. Regulators agreed to renew her license, but required her to reappear with updates in July 2026 and tell the board about “any developments related to the criminal matter.”
Indiana law lists certain “convictions of concern” that may prohibit veterinary licensure, including animal abandonment or neglect or a “substantially similar” conviction in another state.
PETA notified the board of Gau’s conviction within hours of Gau’s guilty plea, according to a representative for the organization.
“Dawn Marie Gau was finally held accountable for the cruelty she inflicted during her lucrative tenure at Envigo’s beagle prison,” a statement from PETA’s Daphna Nachminovitch read in part.
Ryan Murphy is the communities reporter for IndyStar. She can be reached at rhmurphy@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana vet pleads guilty to animal cruelty in Envigo beagle case
Reporting by Ryan Murphy, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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