BLUE MOUNDS, Wis. — A Dane County dog breeding and research facility is being investigated for violation of animal cruelty laws.

La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke has been assigned to look into whether criminal charges should be filed against Ridglan Farms, located about 30 miles west of Madison.

The facility has been in business since 1966. It currently has about 3,000 beagles and employs 16 people.

Ridglan Farms conducts some of its own research and provides beagles to public and private researchers across the country. Beagles have long been used in medical and scientific testing due to their easygoing, obedient nature.

Rebekah Robinson, the president of Dane4Dogs, created her organization in 2017 to stop the breeding, sale and use of dogs and cats in experimentation. She started the group after seeing video shot by Direct Action Everywhere (DXE), an animal rights group that broke into Ridglan Farms to show the conditions the dogs were living in.

The video shows thousands of beagles stacked in small wire cages. Some of the dogs were spinning, which some veterinarians say is a sign of isolation and anxiety.

“We have contacted so many elected officials, so many government agencies and organizations, asking for them to do something about the dogs at Ridglan Farms, about the conditions, about the treatment of the animals there,” Robinson said.

She said the fact that a special prosecutor has been assigned to decide if Ridglan Farms violated animal welfare laws is a big win for Dane4Dogs.

State Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, applauded the decision.

“DATCP has been coming out to this facility and filing reports on the abysmal conditions existing there, which appear to violate the standards of the rule implementing Act 90,” Habush Sinykin said. “Yet there has not been any revocation of the license for that facility or any type of measures that correct it.”

Habush Sinykin helped write Act 90, otherwise known as the “Puppy Mill Bill,” which passed the legislature in 2009. The law created stricter regulations for dog breeders, sellers and animal shelters in Wisconsin.

The law includes regular inspections and veterinary examinations in order to sell or put up dogs for adoption.

Large-scale research facilities like Ridglan Farms have been exempt from the law. Habush Sinykin said she’s been actively working to change that.

“Is it because we need a new law, or is it just that we need the law that we already have being properly enforced?” Habush Sinykin said. “That’s something that we will luckily find out soon.”

According to court documents, Ridglan Farms is accused of mistreating the beagles and keeping them in inhumane, unsanitary conditions.

Former employees testified to performing surgical procedures on the beagles’ eyes and vocal cords without anesthesia or pain medication.

“These are not veterinarians; these are not vet techs,” Robinson said. “These are regular employees who have been instructed by the management at Ridglan Farms to go in and extract teeth, to do this cherry eye surgery.”

Ridglan Farms said it was denied the right to participate in those court hearings and that it has been operating lawfully for decades in accordance with federal and state regulations.

“These matters have been initiated at the insistence of animal rights groups who are not interested in ensuring that the use of animals for scientific research complies with applicable laws,” Ridglan Farms said in a statement. “Rather, these groups seek to end animal research entirely – lawful or not – and they have advanced groundless claims…”

According to that statement from Ridglan Farms, most of the research done with animals from the facility “is for new and better veterinary products that benefit your pet dogs.”

It goes on to say that the “operation is a critically important part of the development and improvement of pharmaceuticals, including vaccines.”

Gruenke, the prosecutor assigned to the case, was unable to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.