Dog rescue owner facing 4 felonies for animal mistreatment says shelter became "too overwhelming"
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A St. Paul woman charged with cruel crimes against dogs is telling her side of the story for the first time to WCCO.
Carley Ryan faces 22 charges, including four felonies for animal mistreatment.
She owned an animal rescue in Andover where police say there was an "overwhelming odor of feces and urine", cages that were "inadequate in size," and no "clean and dry place to stand or lay."
Ryan says she started the rescue because she loves animals but bit off more than she can chew. She says she wanted to shut it down and knew she should.
"It became too overwhelming too fast," she said.
The Animal Humane Society took in 30 dogs linked to the rescue and immediately started nursing them back to health.
"We deal with overcrowding cases, hoarding cases, criminal cases a few times a year and this was one of the worst ones," said Dr. Graham Brayshaw, the Animal Humane Society Director of Veterinary Medicine.
RELATED: Andover dog rescue owner charged with 22 counts of animal cruelty
Brayshaw says 20 of the dogs have been adopted. One was placed in another rescue.
Nine were humanely euthanized for medical or behavioral reasons.
"After all of it, you want to sleep for a few days, get up from it, and it actually really replugs you into the mission and why we're here, and long term, really energizes you to go help the next one," Brayshaw said.
Ryan says she did ask for help, but not from Animal Control or the Humane Society.
"Here I [was] saying I need to shut down the rescue, but knowing that the dogs in my care would be euthanized for behavioral reasons...and so to find out yesterday that they were, just kind of confirmed my worst fears," Ryan said.
Brayshaw says this was a classic case of neglect.
"It's someone whose heart started in the right place wanting to help animals and got so extremely far beyond what was acceptable that she ended up hurting animals," he said.
The investigation into Ryan's rescue started when police in Cottage Grove found eight dogs dead on the side of a road.
Ryan told officers they died of parvo. She told WCCO a volunteer at the rescue lied to her about taking the bodies to be cremated.
Ryan has her first court appearance in March.