A.R.S.E.

"These experimental animals are just sentient objects; they’re useful because they are able to react; sometimes precisely because they are able to feel fear and pain. And they’re used as if they were electric light bulbs or boots. What it comes down to is that whereas there used to be human and animal slaves, now there are just animal slaves. They have no legal rights, and no choice in the matter."

- The Narrator about the animals' experiments.

"Do you think you're the only one who hates this DAMN PLACE!?"

- Rowf about the A.R.S.E. institution.

"Damn this place. Damn the whitecoats. Damn you all!"

- Snitter about the A.R.S.E. institution.

Animal Research: Scientific and Experimental, also known as A.R.S.E., is a government research facility found at Lawson Park within Coniston, England and run by Dr. Boycott. It is where scientists (known as "whitecoats" from the animals' perspective) perform torturous cosmetic research on animals, including two dogs named Rowf and Snitter.

History
After his master was hit by a truck, Snitter was sold to the A.R.S.E. by his wicked sister, where they do numerous vivisection experiments on him, causing him to have hallucinations, while they repeatedly drown Rowf to test his endurance. Dr. Boycott doesn't feel any sympathy for the animals and is usually threatening towards his subordinate, Stephen Powell. Powell wanted to get the job, because he wanted to save his sick daughter, Stephanie. A German scientist named Dr. Goodner studies the bubonic plague and plans on using it as a secret bioweapon for the Ministry of Defense. This leads to the belief that the dogs are carrying the plague after their escape when Digby Driver planned on using that information for his news articles. Harry Tyson, the institution's janitor, is in charge of feeding the dogs. He originally worked as a farmer, then a ship carrier, before becoming a janitor.

One day, Tyson forgets to latch Rowf's cage, leaving the two dogs to escape the kennel and explore the lab, while discovering other animals who were having horrible experiments done on them. A monkey startles the two dogs and accidentally break a tank containing rats near Dr. Goodner's office, which would eventually lead to the belief that they're carrying bubonic plague. They climb in an incinerator to find a way out, unaware of what it actually is. As Dr. Goodner prepares the incinerator, the two dogs make a narrow escape before the incinerator starts up, allowing them to roam the countryside.

While the two dogs try to find a master, they were forced to kill livestock in order to survive. However, the two dogs are being pursued by farmers and the whitecoats. A local fox known as "The Tod" decides to help them survive in the wild and evade the hunters who want to kill/take them back to the laboratory. An unscrupulous journalist named Digby Driver visits the lab and blackmails Dr. Goodner, so he can publish an article about the plague-carrying dogs.

In the film, Dr. Boycott hires a bounty hunter named Ackland to take down the dogs. However, he eventually falls to his death after the Tod jumps him, leaving his corpse to be scavenged by the dogs. This results in the army getting involved and the Tod is killed while drying to distract the hunters, so the two dogs can escape to the sea. They are chased by the whitecoats in a helicopter until they reach the shore. Dr. Boycott is called by the Under Secretary and overhears that he is forced to suspend his job. Meanwhile, Powell quits his job and takes a monkey with him while looking for a new career after his conscience got the better of him over a pointless sensory deprivation experiment on the monkey. He also planned on writing a book about the prevention of animal cruelty, which may lead to the facility getting shut down.

Victims

 * Dogs with various horrible experiments.
 * Rowf: Drowned for endurance testing.
 * Snitter: Vivisectional experiments by plaguing his conscious and subconscious mind together.
 * Kiff: Killed in the lab.
 * Licker: Restrained in a mental harness and beaten.
 * Monkeys with electrodes.
 * A monkey confined in a metal cylinder and left in utter isolation and sensory deprivation for 42 days.
 * Rabbits having hairspray dripped in their eyes to see how long it takes them to go blind.
 * Rats given cancer before getting dissected.
 * Cats forced to wear hoods covering their eyes and ears.
 * Guinea pigs with amputated limbs.
 * Homing pigeons with damaged sensory organs and brains.
 * Mice who have been injected with the urine of potentially pregnant women.
 * Rats confined in glass boxes.

Trivia

 * The A.R.S.E. is a pun on the word "arse", which is a British slang for buttocks.
 * In the book, the facility was named "Animal Research: Surgical and Experimental".
 * It was explained by the author Richard Adams that the lake district has no research labs and that no research lab would do those horrible experiments.
 * At one point in the book, Snitter reminisces a flashback, where a dog named Licker informed them that the whitecoats sometimes beat dogs to death after restraining them in mental harnesses.
 * Snitter's shout to the vulture "I hope you make sure we're properly dead before you start, old rip-beak!" is sampled in the industrial band Skinny Puppy's song/single "Testure". Both the song, whose name combines "test" and "torture", and music video equates medical experimentation on live animals as torture.
 * The rabbits in the lab bear a resemblance to the rabbits from the 1978 film Watership Down, which is another film directed by Martin Rosen and based on a book by Richard Adams.