Wayne Hsiung is torn. The nationally known animal rights activist is “incredibly happy” over the success of a decade-long effort to free the beagles at Ridglan Farms, the dog breeding and research facility in southwestern Dane County. People around the world are seeing images of the dogs frolicking on grass for the first time in their lives and being cuddled by helpers getting them ready for their forever homes. 

But there is one question that keeps nagging him: What took so long? 

“It should have happened 10 years ago,” says Hsiung, referring to the deal that secured the release of 1,500 of the facility’s beagles, with ongoing efforts to release the roughly 650 beagles that are said to remain. “A lot of dogs died in the meantime. And the thing that’s most discouraging to me about this is that I really think our democracy failed, and the rule of law failed, over the last 10 years as a result of powerful people’s willingness to engage in bullshit.”

Hsiung and other animal rights activists are especially critical of Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who disregarded repeated calls to prosecute Ridglan for violating the state’s animal cruelty laws. Hsiung, an attorney, made multiple efforts to get Ozanne to act, including drawing up and presenting an actual criminal complaint for the office’s potential use.

“DA Ozanne has shown no shortage of energy to pursue charges related to Ridglan Farms,” muses Steffen Seitz, a litigation fellow for the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver. “Sadly, each time it has been to punish activists who have saved dogs, rather than to prosecute Ridglan for cruelty.”

Seitz, who has represented Hsiung and others in court, says “so much litigation and other turmoil could have been avoided if, at any point, Ozanne had done the right thing. As the outcome of the special prosecutor investigation showed, animal cruelty at Ridglan Farms festered on Ozanne’s watch. He had a duty to enforce the law. Instead, he chose to protect cruelty and punish compassion.”

Ozanne, a Democrat appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle in 2010 and elected four times since, most recently in 2024, did not respond to a detailed request for comment from Isthmus.

In early 2025, Dane County Judge Rhonda Lanford, in response to a petition and testimony from Hsiung and others, found probable cause to believe Ridglan “has committed multiple criminal violations” of the state’s animal cruelty laws. She appointed a special prosecutor, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke, who similarly concluded that there were grounds for bringing felony criminal charges against Ridglan in connection with its practice of having non-veterinary staff perform surgeries on beagles without anesthesia or aftercare pain medications. 

Lanford, in her ruling, noted Hsiung’s testimony that he had made at least seven attempts to provide Ozanne’s office with “video and documentary evidence of the conditions at Ridglan,” including “multiple reports from state and federal agencies documenting Ridglan’s abuse.” She rejected Ozanne’s contention that he had never actually decided against prosecuting, saying his office “failed to take any action with regard to the allegations made against Ridglan.”

Gruenke ultimately struck a deal with Ridglan, allowing it to surrender its state breeding license, the main part of its business, to avoid criminal charges. (Ridglan, founded in 1966, has consistently denied mistreating any animals in its care.)

Rebekah Robinson, the president of Dane4Dogs, believes Ozanne should have realized back in 2018, when an article on the Ridglan dogs appeared in The Intercept, that there were “serious problems” at the facility. The article included images of distressed dogs in tiny cages sometimes stacked two deep, taken by Hsiung and two other activists who entered Ridglan at night and left with three dogs. 

Instead, Ozanne’s office brought felony burglary and theft charges against the three activists. These charges were dismissed at the request of Ridglan Farms in March 2024, shortly before a scheduled trial. Ridglan said it wanted the case dropped because it was receiving threats. The dismissal denied the activists the opportunity they sought to highlight conditions at the facility.

“Those activists who went in benefited nothing and put a lot on the line to expose what was happening at Ridglan Farms,” Robinson says. “And if you’re the district attorney, I think that should be a key indicator that you need to investigate and you need to figure out what is going on in your community.”

As Robinson and others see it, there have been multiple failures on the part of authorities to take appropriate action to protect the dogs. This includes the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, which has flagged the facility for repeated code violations without exercising its statutory authority to suspend the license of a facility when there is “evidence that an act of animal cruelty” has occurred. 

DATCP spokesperson Sam Go says the agency and its Veterinary Examining Board “made a number of findings” regarding Ridglan that were passed to the Dane County DA’s office and then to the special prosecutor, which led to the operation agreeing to surrender its breeding license. She adds that DATCP “continues to investigate complaints related to this facility” where it has jurisdiction, including a routine inspection on May 11 that found no additional violations. 

In addition, the Veterinary Examining Board suspended the license of Ridglan Farm’s chief veterinarian, Richard Van Domelen, alleging multiple serious violations, a decision upheld by an administrative law judge. But Van Domelen has continued working at Ridglan as its facility manager.

The deal to purchase the dogs and make them available for adoption was brokered by two animal rights organizations shortly after an estimated 1,000 activists converged on Ridglan Farms on April 18 seeking to remove as many beagles as possible. While no dogs were freed, the brutal response of law enforcement and private security hired by Ridglan garnered national attention and likely ratcheted up pressure on the facility to allow the dogs to be made available for adoption. Just this week a rescue group announced a deal for the release of an additional 135 beagles. 

Hsiung was arrested soon after he arrived at the April 18 protest and spent three days in jail. He and three others have also been charged with felony burglary, theft and criminal damage to property in connection with a March 15 action in which 22 dogs were successfully removed. 

On May 21, the four defendants entered pleas of not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison. Now a divinity student in New York City, Hsiung intends to argue that his actions were legal, akin to breaking a window to save a dog from dying in a hot car. “I have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time,” he said in court. 

The case, scheduled for trial in September, is being prosecuted by Ozanne’s District Attorney’s Office.