Dog breeding company Ridglan Farms filed a lawsuit against local animal rights organization Dane4Dogs and its cofounders in April, claiming Dane4Dogs’s plan to release a public list of Ridglan’s customers willfully and maliciously injured their business. However, the history between these two organizations goes back much further, and this lawsuit is just the latest controversy in a years-long clash.
Ridglan Farms, a biomedical research beagle breeding company based in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, is the second-largest research dog breeder in the United States, housing over 3,000 “purpose-bred” dogs that are sold across the country for biomedical research.
Ridglan Farms is USDA-licensed as both a dog breeder and a research facility, according to their website. They also have an Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) accreditation, a voluntary program allowing inspectors to visit sites to examine welfare aspects such as enrichment, housing and veterinary care.
Dane4Dogs is a grassroots organization in Dane County whose mission is to “end the breeding, sale and use of dogs and cats for painful and distressing experimentation.” Madison local Rebekah Robinson co-founded Dane4Dogs in 2018 after reading about an investigation by California-based animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere into Ridglan Farms. The events culminated in a Ridglan lawsuit after the organization took three beagles from the facility in 2017.
Ridglan’s current lawsuit
Ridglan Farms filed a lawsuit on April 4 against Dane4Dogs and its cofounders, Robinson and Jamie Hagnow, as well as former employee Scott Gilbertson, alleging “civil action for injury to business” and “tortious interference with existing and prospective contractual relationships.”
Scott Gilbertson testified in October that during his employment in January 2022, he was instructed to restrain a dog during a cherry eye removal surgery performed without anesthesia or pain relief.
A cherry eye is the ‘popping out’ of the nictitating membrane, a dog’s third eyelid. The condition presents as a red, swollen mass and is more common in dog breeds such as beagles, due to a weaker attachment holding the nictitating membrane in place. Treatment for cherry eyes includes surgical replacement by a veterinarian. According to Veterinary Centers of America (VCA), cherry eye removal surgery is not a recommended form of treatment.
Specifically, allegations include that Gilbertson’s testimony on cherry eye removal surgeries was false and that Dane4Dogs attempted to “weaponize” the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) by submitting complaints against Ridglan.
Ridglan also alleged that Dane4Dogs contributed to a significant loss of business by “improperly obtaining” Ridglan’s customer list and writing a letter encouraging each customer to stop purchasing from Ridglan, warning them that they would be placed on a public list of “Ridglan Farms buyers” if they continued to purchase from Ridglan. Ridglan constituted this as a “direct threat to those customers of Ridglan Farms.”
Dane4Dogs mailed the letter to each member of Ridglan’s customer list on Jan. 27, 2025, informing readers of the animal cruelty investigation into Ridglan and “strongly encourag[ing]” customers to end their business with Ridglan.
University of Wisconsin-Madison purchased 19 dogs from Ridglan Farms between January 2022 and July 2025. However, the university makes up less than two percent of Ridglan’s sales. On August 13, UW-Madison released a statement confirming they have bought dogs from Ridglan in the past, but only use suppliers that are USDA licensed. The dogs are used for medical research such as cancer prevention and vaccine creation.
On June 18, 2025, Dane4Dogs filed a Motion to Dismiss, arguing their protest and actions are protected by the First Amendment.
Robinson said Ridglan failed to provide evidence that Gilbertson’s testimony was false, claiming his testimony was corroborated by a second employee under oath.
Robinson also disputed Ridglan’s claim that Dane4Dogs weaponized DATCP, a governmental organization, against Ridglan. She said the Dane County judge found Dane4Dogs’s complaints to be credible, leading to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Ridglan.
“That is the basis of their lawsuit against us… that we filed these complaints,” Robinson told The Daily Cardinal.
On August 15, Dane County supervisors David Boetcher and Dan Blazewicz published Resolution 119, urging DATCP to revoke Ridglan Farms’ breeding license. The resolution also calls for the beagles to be placed in “custodial care” during the investigation. According to WMTV, Boetcher said the goal of the resolution is to provide “immediate protection” to the dogs.
In response to the resolution, Dane4Dogs and other animal activist groups called for the seizure of dogs from Ridglan Farms.
Dane4Dogs and Ridglan: Seven years of history
In 2018, Robinson said Dane4Dogs organized the introduction of a ballot initiative in Mount Horeb, a rural village about 5 miles away from Blue Mounds, allowing residents to oppose breeding dogs for biomedical research. According to Wisconsin Public Radio, the referendum targeted Ridglan Farms and would have deemed Ridglan Farms and places like it a “public nuisance.”
However, according to Robinson, the initiative wasn’t aimed directly at Ridglan.
“[The ballot initiative] would not have affected Ridglan Farms because they’re located in Blue Mounds, but they took it very personally,” Robinson told The Daily Cardinal.
The 2018 ballot initiative failed, but Dane4Dogs didn’t stop there. In 2020, Richland Center, Wisconsin, was the first city in the country to ban the breeding of dogs and cats for research. According to Robinson, Dane4Dogs aided in passing a total of six of these ordinances across Wisconsin, including the Richland Center ordinance.
Dane4Dogs has not tried to discuss animal welfare practices with Ridglan. “We believe that dog experimentation should not be legal. So while welfare of the dogs is a concern, we believe that they should not be there in the first place,” Robinson said.
The Dane County Circuit Court appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Ridglan Farms in January 2025 after petitions from Dane4Dogs and Alliance for Animals, another animal activist group, launched in October 2024. The investigation is ongoing, according to Robinson. The court received testimony from six former employees and veterinarians, as well as documents, videos and photos of Ridglan’s alleged crimes.
Additionally, Robinson said Dane4Dogs filed complaints against Ridglan with the DATCP, its Veterinary Examining Board (VEB) and the United States Department of Agriculture, leading to investigations through those organizations as well.
She said the special prosecutor’s appointment was based on three specific allegations against Ridglan: improper cherry eye removal surgeries, psychological distress and insufficient housing conditions.
The allegation relating to improper surgeries relies on Gilbertson’s testimony, which Ridglan disputed in their lawsuit.
A second employee who worked at Ridglan from 2006 to 2010 testified in October that they saw abnormal behaviors in the dogs regularly, including pacing, spinning and fighting. In the most recent 2022 and 2024 reports, the DATCP did not explicitly note abnormal behavior, but noted a lack of positive human interaction for the dogs. However, similar stereotypic — repetitive and dysfunctional — behaviors were noted in a 2016 DATCP report.
“The other [allegation] is the psychological distress the dogs are experiencing from being held in very small cages for their whole lives. There’s a lot of footage of the dogs spinning,” Robinson told The Daily Cardinal.
Additionally, the 2024 DATCP report noted a dog with an appearingly untreated cyst on her paw. In response, Ridglan stated their employees manage over 3,000 dogs and though they are “very diligent and caring… they are human and may not notice every minor finding immediately.”
A follow up DATCP report in September 2024 found another dog with seemingly untreated injuries, as well as exposed wire in the flooring of some enclosures. Ridglan stated that they were aware of the injury, and that she was healing and otherwise normal.
The 2022 and 2024 DATCP reports also stated that there were noticeable ammonia odors and that waste was not properly disposed of.
The Daily Cardinal repeatedly reached out to Ridglan Farms and its attorney for comment on these allegations, but received no response.
What happens next?
If Ridglan is shut down, Robinson said she hopes the dogs are adopted out, like many of the beagles that were rescued when Envigo, a research beagle breeding facility that committed Animal Welfare Act violations in 2022, was shut down. However, Robinson said if Ridglan voluntarily shut down, they would be able to sell the dogs to other breeders.
Robinson said that Dane4Dogs hopes to hold Ridglan accountable for their actions. However, regardless of what happens with Ridglan, Dane4Dogs will continue to “focus heavily on community education… where we inform residents about dog experimentation and alternatives to it,” she said.
Currently, Dane4Dogs has a booth at the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and is lobbying state legislators to ensure research labs adopt their dogs out after completing research, among other activities. There is also a chapter of Dane4Dogs at the UW-Madison focusing on dogs used in research at the university.
Lindsay Pfeiffer is the science editor for The Daily Cardinal.
