MISSION, Kan. — The Kansas Department of Agriculture issued another order on Wednesday to try to revoke Mission pet shelter Unleashed Pet Rescue’s license. 

Heather Lansdowne, a spokesperson for the Department, said the revocation order comes after an investigation by the department found new citations and findings. The department did not disclose the nature of its investigation or findings into the shelter.

“The next step will be that either the respondent (Unleashed Pet Rescue) accepts the order and surrenders their license or they dispute the order and request a hearing by the required deadline,” Lansdowne said in an email.

In an interview with FOX4 Thursday, Lansdowne said the animals inside the shelter are healthy, but that doesn’t change this latest order.

“There aren’t any animals in imminent danger,” Lansdowne said. “That’s what we’re looking for. The facility itself is still not in compliance with the Kansas Pet Animal Act.”

That act is supposed to make sure shelters are compliant with the state. Suzanne Higdon has adopted three of the dogs she’s fostered from Unleashed.

“I would have rather just kept them than send them back there because I’ve seen inside the facility… and it’s disgusting,” Higdon said.

Higdon met us at a hair salon in Olathe, where she and owner Jose Stambaugh talked about the issues they have with the Executive Director of Unleashed.

“If I was the problem, and my girls kept on coming to me, coming to me, coming to me… I would become the problem,” Stambaugh said Thursday. “So, the problem is not so much with the organization of Unleashed, Danielle Reno is the problem… Danielle Reno needs to be out.”

Danielle Reno, who runs Unleashed Pet Rescue, has maintained that the shelter operates at the highest standards and has denied many of the allegations made against her by former employees and volunteers.

FOX4 emailed Reno’s attorney, called at least twice for comment and called the shelter but did not receive a comment.

Last month, a FOX4 Problem Solvers investigation revealed that Unleashed Pet Rescue had failed its state health inspections on more than one occasion.

A six-year review of state inspection reports revealed that in 2022 alone, the state inspected Unleashed Pet Rescue at least five times. During each inspection, data shows the number of adult dogs housed in the shelter never stayed below 65 and often rose above 90.

“There were too many dogs to adequately take the best care of them and get them out of their small spaces for more than, I mean, some of them only got out 15 minutes total of the day,” Karen Swanson, former manager at Unleashed Pet Rescue, previously told FOX4.

Last week, the city of Mission announced it was no longer partnering with the pet shelter. The city had, until recently, listed the shelter as its source to house missing and stray animals.

On Monday, the department says it issued an emergency order to the shelter to stop taking animals. Since that day, the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s issued another order to try to get their license taken away.

“It’s long overdue. It is long overdue,” Stambaugh said of this latest order from the state. “Right now, everything has come to light, but this is not the first time that there has been an attempt to shed light on what is going on at Unleashed.”

Cockroaches, overcrowding and poor management are just a few of the many complaints FOX4 Problem Solvers received on Unleashed Pet Rescue in the past four months.

“It’s about time that this happened,” Gillian Gollehon, former foster and volunteer at Unleashed Pet Rescue, said in response to the ruling from the Kansas Department of Agriculture. “I’m not trying to, I guess, set aside that they have done some good. I’m not taking that away from that, but the bad has outweighed that good.”

The Kansas Department of Agriculture said it had received over 20 new complaints nearly a week after Problem Solvers’ investigation was released.

“We have had some informal conversations with shelters and are confident that we will not have a problem finding new locations for those (Unleashed Pet Rescue) animals, but no specific arrangements have been made yet,” Lansdowne said in an email.

Records from the Kansas Department of Agriculture reveal the shelter requested to take in 933 dogs from out-of-state last year. In 2021, Unleashed Pet Rescue requested to take in more than 1,700 dogs.

Those numbers do not include dogs the shelter took in from the state of Kansas or from out of the country.

“I think, ultimately, they need to be held accountable,” Gollehon previously told FOX4.

The department says Unleashed Pet Rescue has 15 days to appeal the revocation order.

FOX4 Problem Solvers will update you as we learn more.