It's an opinion board but I'm commenting on the legal side of this story, which I think was as clear from my comment as your opinion was in yours. Legally, AC had an extremely strong case to remove these animals from that abusive situation, but it's not at all clear that they had the right to alter them and then offer them for adoption when their owners were never, in fact, accused of any crime. 

The fact that the owners all seem to be from out of state leads me to believe that unless it can be proven that the owners had personally visited the trainer in her home, they are going to have a pretty easy path to claim in court that they believed their animals were in good hands and that they too were victims of this woman, and their property was improperly seized and altered.