A state agency says the Mission animal shelter Unleashed Pet Rescue and Adoption has been operating without a license for the past six months, as a legal battle over the shelter’s status plays out in court.
In late 2023, the Kansas Department of Agriculture filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction in Johnson County District Court to stop Unleashed from operating unlicensed.
That came after two failed inspections last fall in which the state detailed a laundry list of violations, including dogs sent to temporary foster homes without being spayed or neutered a lack of documentation showing dogs had been properly examined by a vet before being sent to homes.
The state said Unleashed’s “insufficient” license renewal application also included “errors or omissions,” leading the agency to deny a license extension beyond Oct. 1, 2023.
Earlier this month, Unleashed responded with its own lawsuit against the Kansas Department of Agriculture, several employees of the state agency and what it calls “animal rights extremists.”
That lawsuit, filed April 3 in Johnson County District Court, alleges those defendants all are part of a years-long conspiracy — fueled by personal vendettas against the president of Unleashed — intended to shut the shelter down.
Amid the legal battle, Unleashed remains open and operating, consistently promoting animals to adopt on the shelter’s Facebook page — and, according to the state agency, still taking in animals as of March 2024.
This isn’t the first battle between Unleashed and the state
The Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Animal Facilities Inspection Program started the process to revoke Unleashed’s license in November 2022. That move was based on an inspection the shelter failed a month earlier that cited, among other issues, a lack of floorspace in some kennels.
Then, early last year, the shelter came under more scrutiny after Fox 4 reported that multiple customers and former employees complained about the conditions at the facility at 5918 Broadmoor St., including “dog bowls full of cockroaches” and “injured or sick animals.”
Unleashed President Danielle Reno in Feburary 2023 defended the shelter in a Facebook post, saying the accusations were “grossly exaggerated” and that they jeopardized the shelter’s existence.
A month later, the city of Mission dropped Unleashed as its animal sheltering partner, and the state ordered the shelter to immediately stop taking in animals and also revoked Unleashed’s license.
The shelter appealed that revocation order, which allowed it to stay in business as it appealed.
But in April 2023, Fox 4 reported that Unleashed employees were still taking in dogs. A few days later, the state withdrew its emergency order, allowing Unleashed to continue to take in animals.
Fast forward to Sept. 28, 2023, Unleashed failed another state inspection due to a complaint about overcrowding at the shelter, though an attorney for Unleashed called the inspection a “complete fraud.”
Unleashed submitted an application a day later, on Sept. 29, 2023, to renew its license for another year, but the Kansas Department of Agriculture denied that request, according to a letter to Unleashed from the state agency obtained by the Post.
Two weeks after the failed September 2023 inspection, Unleashed failed a follow-up inspection on Oct. 12, 2023.
That failed inspection was about a month before the Kansas Department of Agriculture sent a letter to Unleashed — obtained by the Post via records request — notifying the shelter of its unlicensed status. The Nov. 17, 2023, letter states that the shelter was unlicensed “to conduct any activities under the Kansas Pet Animal Act.”
In December 2023, the state agency filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction in Johnson County District Court to get Unleashed to stop operating without a license. The Kansas Department of Agriculture amended that lawsuit in early March 2024.
Unleashed responded with a counterclaim of its own, filed with the district court on April 3.
Why did the state deny extending Unleashed’s license?
The state decided against renewing Unleashed’s license late last year, citing a number of reasons, according to a Nov. 17 letter from the Kansas Department of Agriculture to Unleashed.
Those reasons included:
- “Errors or omissions” in the renewal application about whether veterinary care information was on file with Unleashed.
- Misrepresenting its business practices, in particular, buying dogs from animal breeders at dog auctions, then promoting them as rescue dogs and adopting them out to new owners.
- Sending animals who are neither spayed nor neutered to foster homes without documentation that the animals were first examined by a veterinarian.
“Unleashed has acknowledged that its community’s shelters are at or over capacity, yet Unleashed continues to import thousands of dogs per year from out of state and into this same community,” the Nov. 17 letter reads.
“Unleashed further contributes to, at minimum, the risk of exacerbating the existing overpopulation crisis by immediately placing these animals in foster homes without spaying or neutering them.”
The letter states multiple times that Unleashed remained unlicensed as of Oct. 1, 2023.
The letter also noted that if Unleashed continued to operate in “willful disregard” to state laws, then the agency could take action in the form of “emergency proceedings” if it confirms that Unleashed was, in fact, violating state laws as suspected.
The document embedded below is the entire Nov. 17, 2023, letter to Unleashed.
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Open in new tab If the state says Unleashed has no license, how is it still operating?
With its legal future in limbo, the shelter appears to be able to continue to operate without any authority able to completely shut it down.
Mission Police Chief Dan Madden told the Post that his department’s understanding is that the Kansas Department of Agriculture is the agency with the statutory authority to “handle this situation.”
Nonprofits, like Unleashed, require no city-issued business licenses under the Mission city code. Therefore, there is no Mission business license for the police department to revoke, Madden said.
“We’re waiting for the [Kansas Department of Agriculture] to take action,” Madden said.
Madden said the police department is unable to charge Unleashed with anything in municipal court because state statute governs the shelter’s operations.
The Johnson County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to the Post via email that the state has the authority to enforce violations at the shelter.
On the other hand, Jamie Stewart, the public relations director for the state agriculture department, said that, according to the agency’s legal team, the state is unable to stop a shelter from operating unless it has gone through a final agency order in a district court.
All of the orders the Kansas Department of Agriculture have issued to Unleashed at this time are in litigation and are not yet final, Stewart added.
Still, the state agency is unable to physically shut down shelters. That is up to local law enforcement, such as the local police department or the county sheriff’s office, Stewart said.
Court T. Kennedy, an attorney representing Unleashed, told the Post in an emailed statement that the shelter’s license will remain valid through any renewal denial proceedings, as allowed under a state law that deals with license expirations.
What do operations inside Unleashed look like?
State orders, inspection reports, notices of non-compliance and email exchanges — all obtained by the Post through an open records request — paint a picture of an overcrowded, pest-infested shelter that fails to meet the minimum standards of the Kansas Pet Animal Act.
Months after the Kansas Department of Agriculture revoked the shelter’s license, Unleashed failed a state inspection in September 2023. The Sept. 28, 2023, inspection found the following violations:
- Female and male dogs who were neither spayed nor neutered in the same kennels
- A cockroach crawling on the floor and a piece of feces on the ground of the outdoor play area
- One 4-year-old dog in foster care without documentation that it had been neutered
Two weeks later, Unleashed failed a follow-up inspection. That Oct. 12, 2023, inspection found the following violations:
- A lack of records showing from whom Unleashed got 22 animals at the shelter
- No veterinary care form — a requirement of state law to show shelters have a primary care vet on hand — on file between Sept. 15, 2023, to Oct. 4, 2023
- A dozen dogs in foster homes who were neither spayed nor neutered, and no documentation showing these dogs were examined by a vet before being placed in a foster home.
Through a records request, the Post obtained a letter from Adrienne Goodman, the veterinarian that works with Unleashed, showing that rather than immediately spaying or neutering an incoming animal, it is Unleashed’s protocol for these animals to be immediately sent to a foster home.
The shelter immediately fosters incoming animals to de-stress the pet rather than risk anesthesia-related complications caused by stress that could result in death during the spaying or neutering procedure, according to Goodman’s letter.
The foster family monitors the pet for “incubating diseases” for up to 14 days, which can help reduce the risks of surgery, the letter said.
The state took the matter to court
In mid-December, the Kansas Department of Agriculture sought an injunction with Johnson County District Court to stop Unleashed from operating without a license.
The state’s lawsuit referred to much of the Nov. 17 letter, including the agency’s reasoning for rejecting the shelter’s application to renew its license for the period between October 2023 and October 2024. It also referenced the failed September and October 2023 inspections.
An amended lawsuit, filed by the Kansas Department of Agriculture on March 11, states that the agency’s commissioner had still not approved a license renewal for Unleashed.
That amended claim alleges Unleashed continued to take in new animals despite it being illegal to do so without a license, including at least 34 dogs or puppies between Nov. 22, 2023, and March 3, 2024.
In its most recent action, the agency also alleges Unleashed has “represented to the public” and to the city of Mission that it does have a valid license, even though the Kansas Department of Agriculture “has made clear to [Unleashed]” that it is unlicensed.
“It appears to [the Kansas Department of Agriculture] that [Unleashed] is opening acting in blatant disregard of the Kansas Pet Animal Act statutes and regulations adopted thereunder that were designed in part to ensure animal welfare and control spread of diseases, by continuing to intake additional animals to offer for adoption, when it has no license to do so,” the March 11 amended lawsuit reads.
Unleashed responds with lawsuit against state
On April 3, the animal shelter filed a counterclaim, its own lawsuit, against the Kansas Department of Agriculture, several of the agency’s employees and other individuals.
Unleashed is suing the state agency and other individuals on several counts, including:
- Retaliatory prosecution
- Malicious prosecution
- Violation of substantive due process
- Violation of right of privacy
The lawsuit is also seeking more than $25 million in damages, accounting for the loss of more than $2.3 million in annual donations or other revenue, more than $250,000 in attorney fees and damage to the shelter’s reputation.
The 96-page counterclaim details what is an alleged conspiracy of “extremist animal rights activists” — some of the named defendants in the lawsuit — and Kansas Department of Agriculture employees to take down Unleashed and its president, Danielle Reno.
As part of the alleged conspiracy, the Unleashed lawsuit declares that the state agency falsified results of inspection reports, retaliated against the shelter for defending itself and “manufactured an alleged basis to deny renewal of” the shelter’s license.
Examples of retaliation against Unleashed include:
- telling other shelters and rescues to stop working with Unleashed
- interfering with Unleashed’s animal control agreement with the city of Mission and other cities.
- lodging “baseless complaints” to the Kansas Board of Veterinary Examiners against the shelter’s attending veterinarian, as well as to the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, leading to an investigation of the shelter
- and “compromising [Unleashed’s] ability to fix its roof in a timely manner.”
The document embedded below is Unleashed’s entire counterclaim.
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The shelter maintains it is licensed to operate
In the April 3 counterclaim, Unleashed argues that a state law dealing with the expiration of licenses gives businesses the right to due process regarding license renewal denials.
Under that law, K.S.A. 77-511(d), the shelter argues that it is allowed to remain licensed while proceedings regarding the license renewal are ongoing.
Kennedy, the shelter’s attorney, told the Post in an emailed statement that “Unleashed is licensed to operate under the provisions of Kansas law governing license renewal.”
The shelter’s license will remain valid as long as “proceedings on its renewal application denial are pending in the Office of Administrative Hearings,” Kennedy said.
Due process is particularly important in this case because of two prior failed attempts by the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Animal Facilities Inspection Program to “put my client (Unleashed) out of business,” Kennedy added.
Last year, the Kansas Department of Agriculture issued a revocation order on Unleashed’s license. Unleashed appealed that order.
“Regarding this latest attempt to abuse legal proceedings to put Unleashed out of business, my client looks forward to having the truth exposed in a court of law and for justice to finally prevail,” Kennedy told the Post via email statement.
Stewart, the public relations director for the state agriculture agency, told the Post that the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s legal team is aware that Unleashed says it is still allowed to operate under its old license.
Keep reading: State orders Unleashed Pet Rescue to stop taking in animals
