The meeting video, like most from municipal meetings, is not of the highest quality – a fact that is compounded by the setting.
The speakers addressing the advisory board for Indianapolis Animal Care Services are wearing masks in the waning days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting room appears to be cinderblock and the sound of dogs barking in nearby kennels reverberates, sometimes drowning out the speakers.
A window offers a view of a hallway where folks periodically walk by.
About 35 minutes into the advisory board’s meeting on Dec. 21, 2023, Ren Hall steps up to the microphone. In the video, she provides her statement to the board. When she’s done, she gives them each a 45-page packet of information she says she has collected on Humane Society of the Dunes, a Chesterton-based rescue that has come under fire in recent years.
The Post-Tribune has obtained copies of both the statement and the packet Hall provided.
Hall tells the board that the Humane Society of the Dunes, run by Jane Hullsiek, had pulled at least 107 animals from Indianapolis Animal Care Services, including 39 animals in 2023.
“There are very alarming allegations online that have persisted for years about this ‘rescue,’” she tells them. “The allegations include euthanizing all or most of the animals they pull from shelters and pocketing the pledge money, killing community pets that people have asked them to find homes for, and stealing cats from managed communities and people’s pets.”
Hall, a volunteer for Indianapolis Animal Care Services, the municipal shelter serving Indianapolis, said she noticed in January 2023 that Hullsiek’s rescue was pulling a lot of cats and dogs from the shelter.
Other volunteers, including folks who helped transport the animals for their so-called “freedom rides” to their adoptive homes, had noticed the same, Hall told the Post-Tribune in a phone interview.
Hall said during the meeting that she didn’t find social media or website posts from the humane society about the animals finding permanent homes, or animals available for adoption, or fundraisers to support the rescue’s mission.
The questions for Hall and representatives from three area rescues who spoke to the Post-Tribune were what happened to the animals Hullsiek took from IACS, where they went and why learning their fate was so difficult.
Hullsiek said in an interview that she doesn’t use social media to tout her rescue’s success stories and never will. A review of archived Facebook pages for Hullsiek’s rescue shows she had few Facebook postings before she shut the page down in late March or early April because she said it got hacked.
She also won’t use Petfinder or other similar websites to find homes for the animals she rescues, she said. She told the Post Tribune that she believes such sites put the animals at risk for being adopted by someone who will injure, neglect or dump them.
“We do adopt. You won’t ever see a picture on a website. I’ll be dead first,” she said. “Just because I don’t do the normal things a humane society does, doesn’t mean I’m killing them.”
Cats and dogs are posted by IACS on social media to solicit pledges to help pay for the animals’ care and medical needs. Those funds are paid by the person who made the pledge directly to the organization that pulls the animal from the Indianapolis shelter, according to Hall and Colleen Walker, public information officer for Indianapolis Animal Care Services.
During the advisory board meeting, Hall said animals pulled by Humane Society of the Dunes had pledges totaling $45,000, “which could be a very large incentive for someone who doesn’t have the best interests of the animals at heart,” she said, according to the video.
Hall said during the phone interview that she began volunteering for Indianapolis Animal Care Services in mid-to-late 2022. Hall, who lives in Indianapolis, also volunteers for other rescues.
In January 2023, a friend who did animal transports asked Hall what she knew about Humane Society of the Dunes because the friend said the rescue pulled a lot of animals from IACS and alleged the rescue got the money pledged for their care.
Hall said she wondered where all those animals — and the pledge money supporters, including her, had provided to the agency for their care once adopted — had gone.
In late February this year, Hall created a website and Facebook page called Inhumane Society of the Dunes. She says the sites feature each of the animals she had catalogued that Hullsiek had pulled from Indianapolis Animal Care Services.
The posts, similar in form, ask, “Have you seen me?” and include a picture of the cat or dog in question, their name and other pertinent details, including when Hullsiek pulled the animal. It also has purported screenshots from the humane society’s Facebook page, when it was still active.
The website also carries a disclaimer, noting that it’s an “independent watchdog initiative” that relies on public records, submitted documentation and citizen reports.
Each day through around mid-June, the two sites featured a different animal, until Hall, after more than 110 animals, ran out of animals to feature. The Facebook page sometimes shares previous posts about the animals and continues to ask for accountability for what happened to the animals Hullsiek pulled from Indianapolis.
Complaints made to AG’s office
Humane Society of the Dunes pulled 112 cats and dogs from IACS from July 2019 through December 2023, according to Indianapolis Animal Care Services.
Not all of the funds pledged for cats or dogs are collected, but even partial pledges, when tallied up, can be hundreds of dollars per animal, the agency’s spokeswoman said. The pledges, which are paid to the rescue that takes the animal in from IACS, may increase an animal’s chance of getting rescued and provide money to the rescue for that animal’s care.
“We do not see it to where it’s ever abused, where they’re just doing it for the funds. It makes it easier for them to take care of the animal that we cannot take care of,” Walker, the spokeswoman, said.
Questions about the fate of the animals compelled Hall and several other people who pledged money for IACS animals pulled by Hullsiek to file complaints with the Indiana Attorney General’s office’s consumer protection division.
According to information provided by that office through a records request, seven such complaints were filed between Jan. 17 and March 1 last year.
Aimee Gong of Indianapolis provided a copy of her complaint to the Post-Tribune. Her complaint included a screenshot of her $40 pledge made for a dog named Stanley reportedly rescued by the humane society, as well as concerns about the humane society and its practices.
Gong’s complaint asks the Indiana Attorney General’s Office to “fully investigate this organization and its President/Director to ensure Ms. Hullsiek is not breaching her fiduciary duties, is using donations consistent with donor intent, and operating in accordance with how it represents itself to the public. Specifically, using the donations to save the animals’ lives, operating as a no-kill shelter, and placing the animals into happy healthy permanent homes.”
One of the complaints filed against the humane society has a notation for “unsatisfactory performance,” and was administratively closed on Aug. 27, 2024. A file with that notation is “reviewed and considered for possible litigation,” according to an email from the office’s press secretary.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a follow-up email from the Post-Tribune asking for further clarification on the “unsatisfactory performance” notation.
It’s not immediately clear whether Gong’s complaint is that case because her complaint’s case number changed as it moved through the system, but an Aug. 26 email from the Attorney General’s Office to Gong about the status of her complaint, provided by Gong, stated it was “still open and active.”
IACS, animal control conduct inspections
IACS does site visits with rescues that pull animals to make sure they’re up to IACS requirements, according to the memorandum of understanding between IACS and the Humane Society of the Dunes. The shelters must have proof that they are a registered nonprofit and have a working relationship with a veterinarian. They must provide a copy of their adoption contract, and have an organizational commitment to spay or neuter animals before they are adopted by the public.
On Feb. 18, 2023, the rescue coordinator for the Indianapolis shelter and a volunteer did a planned inspection at the Humane Society of the Dunes.
According to that report, obtained through a public records request, the rescue was housed in a pole barn on Hullsiek’s property. The inspection did not include Hullsiek’s house because she said in the report she didn’t keep any animals there.
There were no animals in the kennel area, which had two large enclosures suitable for dogs or cats, and a small room for quarantine if needed.
“No stains on floors or walls,” the report noted. “Enclosures were built solid and safe and clean.”
Per figures on the number of animals Hullsiek pulled from IACS compiled by Hall, the humane society pulled one dog earlier that month and three dogs in December 2022. The humane society did not pull any animals in January 2023 from Indianapolis, according to Hall’s figures, which she provided in the packet to the IACS board.
Hullsiek, according to the inspection report, told the IACS representatives that animals go to the vet first and come to the shelter for healing or an evaluation before they go into foster homes and are adopted. They do not stay at the shelter any longer than necessary, she said in the report.
The report noted that Hullsiek was housing four dogs, including two from IACS, and around three cats, though one of the dogs from IACS was not there because it was out for a “spa day.” Hullsiek planned on keeping Nixon and Misty, the two dogs from IACS, and not putting them up for adoption.
The rescue coordinator said in the report that she “would have no issue continuing to send dogs” to Humane Society of the Dunes.
On Aug. 19, 2022, deputies with the Porter County Sheriff’s Department were called out to inspect the Humane Society of the Dunes in the 1300 block of Brummitt Park Drive in Westchester Township, not far from the Chesterton town limits.
The sheriff’s department was responding to an anonymous complaint of “animal cruelty and illegal euthanasia of animals,” according to a report provided through a records request to Porter County Animal Control.
Hullsiek, according to the report, denied the accusations. She told police she rarely received donations and when she did, they went toward vet bills and food or other supplies.
“While (Hullsiek) denied euthanizing any animals, she did state from time to time she’ll have to sedate a feral cat to take into Dr. Reed,” the report states. She told police she sometimes had to use ketamine, an animal tranquilizer, to sedate cats before she took them to veterinarian Laurence Reed, owner of Westchester Animal Clinic in Porter, but that usually happened where she found the cats and not at her rescue.
Hullsiek also told police, according to the report, that over the previous 20 years, she had taken 10-12 animals to Reed to be euthanized.
Police did not find animal carcasses around or in a pole barn on the property. In fact, the officer didn’t find any animals at all, according to the report.
Through Aug. 3, 2022, per Hall’s data, Hullsiek had pulled 20 animals that year from Indianapolis, including a dog in early August, a dog in mid-July, and four cats and four dogs in June. Hall provided the data in the packet to the IACS board.
“I observed no animals in the pole barn and furthermore I found cobwebs in some of the rooms as it appeared the inside of the pole barn had not been used in quite awhile,” officers with the sheriff’s department said in their report.
Most of the animals Humane Society of the Dunes pulled from Indianapolis had moderate to severe medical needs and were pegged by IACS for release to a rescue organization only, and not the general public, because they needed extensive care before they could be adopted out, according to Hullsiek.
Hall said her hope for the website and Facebook page has always been that the animals are safe and loved. She also hopes to be in contact with people who know what happened to the animals from Indianapolis Animal Care Services, something she said hasn’t happened, with a few exceptions.
Those, Hall said, include one person who reached out to Hall to say they had one of the animals; a couple of dogs that Hullsiek appears to have kept, per the IACS inspection report; and another dog Hall heard about secondhand.
“I don’t want to be making allegations, but it definitely does raise some red flags,” Hall said.
Mozzes and Bandit
On July 15, 2020, Samantha Radakovich contacted Porter County Animal Control about her missing cat, Mozzes. According to that report, provided through a public records request to animal control, Radakovich, who lives in Portage, couldn’t find her cat, which she let out periodically, for a few days.
She told animal control officers her neighbor took the cat to Westchester Animal Clinic in Porter, and that the clinic had released the cat to Hullsiek. While Mozzes was a patient at Westchester, the veterinarian there, Dr. Reed, did not identify the cat brought to him as Mozzes, according to the report.
Radakovich never got her cat back. She later filed a small claims suit in Porter Superior Court against Hullsiek, but, according to court documents, a judge dismissed the claim after a bench trial because Radakovich could not definitively prove the cat was hers.
Radakovich never had Mozzes microchipped, something she still regrets, five years later. In an interview with the Post Tribune, a tearful Radakovich said losing Mozzes “was all my fault.”
“The Defendant testified that she attempted to have the cat returned to determine if it was Mozzes. Unfortunately, the cat escaped and has not been found,” Porter Superior Court Judge Michael Drenth wrote in his ruling, dated April 14, 2021.
The disappearance of Mozzes, Radakovich said, spurred her to start looking into Hullsiek and the Humane Society of the Dunes.
What Radakovich found was other people who claimed, as she did, that Hullsiek had taken their cats and not returned them, or provided the proof as requested that the animals had been adopted into loving homes.
Radakovich joined a growing list of people who questioned Hullsiek’s methods.
Virginia Hernandez also had an interaction with Hullsiek in October 2022 that resulted in the filing of a civil suit in Lake Superior Court over a cat named Bandit, a stray she said she took in that had a clipped ear and had been neutered.
“I was like, somebody threw this cat out,” she said during an interview at her Hammond home.
Because Bandit was friendly, Hernandez decided to find the cat a home. A woman she knew was interested in adopting Bandit but was undergoing testing for cancer and wanted to wait a week for her test results before she committed to taking Bandit in, Hernandez said.
Hernandez said she connected with Hullsiek through an acquaintance, and Hullsiek, according to Hernandez, said she could take in the stray cats Hernandez was caring for and find them homes. The cats included Bandit, and Hullsiek assured Hernandez she could get Bandit back after her friend received her test results, Hernandez said.
Hernandez filed a notice of claim in Lake Superior Court against Hullsiek on Nov. 17, 2022, about not getting Bandit back, according to online court records.
The magistrate noted that Hernandez’s claim “was specifically for the ordered return of a cat,” according to court documents. The notice of claim stated “We wanted him back,” “She refused to bring him back,” and “Asking for his return.”
The magistrate dismissed Hernandez’s case on Dec. 5, 2022, noting the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter, according to court documents.
A few months before Radakovich contacted authorities about Mozzes, the director of the LaPorte County Small Animal Shelter reached out to the director of the Porter County Animal Shelter with questions about Humane Society of the Dunes.
In the email, dated April 7, 2020, and provided through a records request to Porter County Animal Control, Jane Bernard, then with LaPorte County, provided several screenshots of Facebook posts from Indianapolis Animal Care Services featuring cats and dogs on their “freedom rides” to Hullsiek’s rescue.
“The concern is for the care of these continuously incoming animals to her rescue,” Bernard wrote to Toni Bianchi, director of the Porter County shelter at the time. “Where are they being housed and are they truly receiving the medical care that is required. The expense alone must be outrageous…. There are many pieces to her rescue that just don’t seem to jive.”
Hullsiek’s background
Jane Hullsiek sat in a conference room at Harper and Harper, a Valparaiso law firm, with attorney Jessica Smithey during an interview that lasted more than an hour.
“I guess I’m on edge with what’s going on,” she said, as Smithey noted the “vicious rumors” about Hullsiek and her rescue on the Facebook page Inhumane Society of the Dunes.
Hullsiek, who turned 71 in July, said she’s worked in animal rescue for 52 years.
Hullsiek said she was a flight attendant for United Airlines for 34 years and would carry a fold-up bag with her suitcase. Hullsiek would sometimes rescue strays from the places she flew to for work and said she transported them back home in the jet’s cockpit.
Originally from Northwest Indiana, Hullsiek and her late husband, Brad, a pilot, lived for a time in Annandale, Minnesota.
According to an archived story from United Press International, the couple had a large game farm there where they kept about 10 lions, tigers and other cats.
Two lions mauled and killed Brad Hullsiek in May 1987 while he was cleaning their cage, according to the story. He was 29.
“It was a tragic accident,” Hullsiek said. “You can look it up; it’s on the internet.”
Hullsiek moved back to the region with the couple’s two children after that.
She said she worked as a vet tech for about 10 years for Reed, and Reed provides low-cost services for the animals Hullsiek rescues.
‘It’s not for the money’
According to online records from the Indiana Secretary of State’s business division, Hullsiek first incorporated Humane Society of the Dunes, Inc., with her late mother, Canella Blatsioris, on Dec. 18, 1995, with a Portage address. That business was administratively dissolved on Nov. 9, 1998.
It was reincorporated on July 21, 2003, with its current address on Brummit Park Drive in Westchester Township. Hullsiek is listed as both the organization’s president and director.
The Humane Society of the Dunes is not affiliated with a national organization; in fact, no local humane societies are, according to an email from a spokesperson for Humane World for Animals, formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International.
According to the humane society’s 990 tax form for 2008, the nonprofit reported $49,000 in revenue and $3,800 in expenses. That revenue included $25,000 in contributions, grants and gifts. Expenses included $2,000 for program services.
The IRS website reflects that the humane society has filed a 990-N, or e-Postcard, every year since 2009, which would signify its gross receipts are under $50,000. Its nonprofit status remains in good standing; Hullsiek is listed as the board chair and no additional names are included.
Hullsiek insisted she did not pull animals from Indianapolis for the pledge money.
“Yes, people pledge money, but maybe 60% don’t honor their pledge. The pledge is just so an animal can get out of there, so it’s not for the money,” she said.
Hullsiek also said she has around 12 volunteers working directly with the rescue and doesn’t have the resources like larger rescues do to take and post pictures online. The Humane Society of the Dunes’ website, she said, was last updated around 2020 or 2021.
Humane Society of the Dunes also has 30 to 50 volunteer fosters at any given time, Hullsiek said, depending on who’s available. She used to have more fosters, but she’s slowing down her rescue work.
Hullsiek said many of her fosters adopt animals out directly when they are ready, and she has a list of people looking for specific breeds and can contact them when one comes through her rescue. She’s also adopted animals out through Reed’s office at Westchester Animal Clinic.
Hullsiek said she started pulling animals from Indianapolis Animal Care Services after a niece who lives in Indianapolis told her about a dog there. Because Humane Society of the Dunes is a nonprofit, Hullsiek said, her rescue could pull animals from the shelter that were otherwise unadoptable.
The animals she pulled, living in what she said were overcrowded crates and cages, “most of them were on death row.”
Hullsiek said she stopped pulling animals from Indianapolis Animal Care Services “because of the harassment they were giving me, different volunteers.”
She didn’t provide specifics on the adoption rate for Humane Society of the Dunes and said the rescue has slowed down “since this stuff started going on. I’m still rescuing but I’m not getting any younger for this, either.”
Hullsiek said she “can account for all” of the adoptions but those records are “what was taken from the shelter.”
Hullsiek said a three-drawer file cabinet, as well as a laptop with adoption records, were stolen in a December 2023 burglary.
A police report about the burglary received through a records request to the Porter County Sheriff’s Department does not mention a laptop, only a file cabinet. Nothing else in the storage area was stolen, according to the report.
Hullsiek, according to the report, told officers that she had recently been accused of stealing a cat and that its owner “has been posting about her and her rescue on Facebook accusing her of stealing animals. Due to these allegations, (Hullsiek) said that she believes that the rescue may be investigated.”
According to the report, Hullsiek went to her detached pole barn where she kept records of the animals she rescued and/or fostered. A window on the east side of the pole barn was pushed in and the screen was broken. She also noticed her file cabinet was missing, multiple cat towers that had been knocked over, and an open service door.
“(Hullsiek) stated that there are no cameras around the barn. (Hullsiek) stated that the only item taken was the file cabinet and its contents,” the report noted.
While Hullsiek named a possible suspect for the burglary, someone who, according to the report, was upset with Hullsiek about a missing cat, that person was never charged, according to online court records.
‘She does things her way’
Hullsiek said she has been taking rescue animals to Reed for more than 20 years. The longtime veterinarian does not charge Hullsiek for all of the medical services he provides, she said, and often provides low-cost care, which she called “a blessing.”
According to documents provided by the Indiana Board of Veterinary Medicine through a records request, Reed has a lengthy discipline record that stretches back to the late 1980s. He has never had his license suspended.
The adjudications include his license being placed on probationary status twice, in February 1989 and April 2006, and receiving letters of reprimand in June 2012 and November 2020.
The allegations against him over the years include giving his dogs amphetamines to make them more aggressive; poor record-keeping and a “poor outcome” following a cat’s spay/declaw procedure; a course of treatment for a cat “that led to bone marrow suppression and death”; and failing to properly treat a dog with ketoacidosis.
A case was also filed against him in Porter Superior Court alleging he lied about a dog’s puppies, telling the owner of the dog that the puppies weren’t viable and so they were aborted; the owner alleged he sold them.
That case, filed in January 2024, was dismissed with a joint agreement by Reed and the dog owner on June 11, according to court records. Reed said in a phone interview that he didn’t want to abort the puppies and tried to save them but they were too young and died.
Reed, who provided glowing testimony of Hullsiek’s rescue on its website, said in a phone interview that he and Hullsiek have known each other for “many, many years,” including when she was overseeing the rescue in Gary’s Miller neighborhood.
“We help a lot of humane societies, and we actively rescue animals ourselves. Basically, I lose money on it,” Reed said, adding he offers spay/neuter services at a minimal fee and discounted rates for vaccines and surgeries.
As far as Hullsiek, Reed said her “social functioning is not as good as her care for animals,” which can cause a personality clash, though he’s never had that problem with her.
“She does things her way and doesn’t put up with problems,” Reed said. “I think it’s her personality.”
The bulk of the work he’s done for animals rescued by Hullsiek has been spay/neuter services.
“We’ve euthanized very, very few (animals) for her, only those who are decrepit or have major issues, but it’s very rare,” he said. “I think she has her own license to euthanize and does that on her own.”
Other people who volunteer or have volunteered with Hullsiek and her rescue also vouched for her.
Michael Davis of Porter said he has been volunteering for Hullsiek for more than 15 years. He’s adopted two cats and a dog from Humane Society of the Dunes, volunteered to transport animals and also served as a foster.
“I’ve been on such amazing rescues with her, rescues that I will carry for the rest of my life,” Davis said.
He talked about a weeks-long search with Hullsiek to find a cat that got out of a car when a family, trailer in tow, stopped at Interstate 94 and Ind. 49 late at night. An extensive effort, including wild game cameras set up near where the cat was last spotted, finally yielded the cat when it went into a trap set for it.
He and Hullsiek wept when they captured the cat and called its owners.
“I still get choked up about it,” Davis said.
Some animals get sick and die, which is unavoidable, Davis said. But, there isn’t a single animal in all the years he’s known Hullsiek that she hasn’t found a home for and if she can’t find that home, she keeps the animal.
“Jane’s not easy to get along with,” Davis said. “People don’t like being told they shouldn’t let their cat run around the neighborhood because something’s going to happen to it.”
alavalley@chicagotribune.com
