http://www.fox17online.com/news/fox17-animal-hoarding-police-removing-81-dogs-and-4-c

[MYBELLAROCKS]

I hope I posted this in the right place.
I just found out that a woman was arrested down the road from me This is the link. I find it very difficult to believe she lived this close and I never new. The county say they worked with her for a year but yet allowed it to get this bad makes me sick. these dogs that are still living need help but again the county is going to hold the dogs as evidence. so how long will the sit in this shelter have they not paid a big enough price? sorry for the rant, I am just discussed.
http://http://www.fox17online.com/news/fox17-animal-hoarding-police-removing-81-dogs-and-4-cats-from-home-20110803,0,1290416.story

[Klamari]

The link didn't work for me?

[MYBELLAROCKS]

Animal Hoarding: Police removing 81 dogs and 4 cats from home - FOX 17

[onyx'girl]

“We’ve been working with (Shepard-Younce) for a year now,” says Animal Control Officer, Arlene Sterling. “We tried to work with her, and had no option but to get a warrant but to seize the animals.”

So she had 81 dogs and 4 cats and they let this go on for over a year? Shame on them to wait so long before taking action!

[MYBELLAROCKS]

I hear that! shame on them! I would like to know what that means they were working with her, i doubt they ever entered the home.

[onyx'girl]

What are the laws in Newaygo as far as how many dogs you can own? And did she have a kennel license? If so they should have done yearly inspections, but I know Newaygo is pretty isolated, and funds are probably tight. Still...poor animals to have been subjected to this(puppymills are probably better than the conditions she kept)

[MYBELLAROCKS]

newaygo county is a very poor county, they are shutting down our state police post in Oct. but if they are going say they worked with her i would like to see what they did. I did Google her name and found that she was breeding and sell these dogs.
You can have three dogs with out a kennel license in newaygo county, the thing about newaygo is there is no funding to monitor owner. I think muskegon stepped into help with the raid.

[Jax08]

omg...I grew up in Newaygo county. How incredibly sad.

[selzer]

81 dogs in a kennel environment really does not sound like that many to care for. I mean sure, the way we would like all dogs to be treated it would be impossible, but the minimum standards required by law, a properly sized kennel run for each adult, food, water, and daily poo management. I could do that.

Ya figure about fifty or sixty adults, twenty to thirty puppies. Thirty puppies sounds like a lot but it can be as few as three litters: one of 14, one of 10 and one of 6. As awful as it sounds, my guess is this person who every one will put down as the worst scum of the earth, was probably a lot better in some ways than people who manage to stay on the other side of the line.

I mean, my guess is she had maybe 20 animals. And, as the puppy market plummeted, she probably kept many of her puppies rather than dump them in a shelter or shoot them out back and bury them. With decreased sales and increased food bills, there is no money for more runs. So she houses males with females to maintain harmony, only this means more litters, in a still-bad market.

No money for the vet, things get over-crowded and puppies keep coming and are not going.

In no time, she goes from a very manageable situation to completely overwhelmed. It is almost like teetering on the edge, the owner can go from managing to unmanageable super fast, it only takes a personal loss, a bout of depression, and taking care of all those dogs becomes impossible.

I do not think this woman started out by thinking she is going to be a puppy mill -- whatever that is. My guess is she kept some, sold some, bought some, bred some, kept some, sold some, and before you know it she had a tidy little number of dogs under her management. Instead of one in a pen, four in a pen. Four in a pen means fights, wounds, heavy poo and urine, increased vet, increased grooming requirments, and something has to give.

As she is unable to groom, and vet, and clean properly, the dogs' health is compromised further and she is out of her depth.

I do not think this was done intentionally. I do not think animal control should be faulted for working with her for a year. It is possible that, like a hot spot, conditions went from within the acceptable range to within the criminal range that fast -- within a one or two month visitation.

You might not like to think about it, but if someone has 100 runs, and 100 dogs, on the outside, 5 minutes to fill water buckets, pick up poop, and put down food, that is 500 minutes divided by 60, is about 8 hours of work in a days' time. If each dog needs to be groomed once a month, that is between three and four a day, brush out clean ears, do toenails -- definitely manageable for one person who knows what they are doing. For a couple, definitely manageable, so long as nothing happens, a hospital stay, an lingering injury or illness, debilitating stress, and kapow! It is no longer doable, it is insurmountable.

An uncaring zero would just kill the old breeders, auction breeding stock that is not selling, and euthanize puppies that did not sell by 12 or 14 weeks of age. If you are getting 1500 for a puppy, killing one that reaches 14 weeks does not make sense. But if you are getting $50 for a puppy (selling them to pet stores), they become worse than useless to you, they start costing you money for their food and vet care. Money you will not recoup when they are sold which becomes less likely with every day that goes by. So a total zero will kill the puppy rather than give it away.

If I had a nickel for every tiny dog I saw that ran and hid, or shook, well I would be standing on my head and spitting nickels now. Yes, keeping them isolated will cause this, but many dogs are just as isolated in people's back yards. While it is not morally or ethically right to keep a dog isolated to the point of exhibiting such a fearful response, it is not necessarily criminal.

I think the "this-is-the-worst-case-of-animal-hoarding-we-have-seen" line is getting really old. They were working with her for a year, that means, that she probably was on the edge or just over the edge, and then probably went way over-board fast. If all 81 dogs were kept loose in a single wide house trailer with no air-conditioning -- even with air conditioning, yeah that would be really bad. But we hear of people with 600 or 800 dogs being seized. That, would be a whole lot worse in my opinion.

Things spiral. As the number of dogs increases, the number of puppies increase, the food bill increases, the expenses increase, and unless sales also increase, it will get really bad, really fast. My dog food bill is 500 a month. These people have 8 times the dogs. No way you can continue to fork out 4k a month in food, something has to give. So you are feeding ole-roy -- maybe that is only costing you 1k per month. But where is it coming from? The more you worry about where the food is going to come from, and the mortgage, and the utilities, the more depressed you can become. And the spiral continues.

I feel sorry for this woman. I do not condone her letting her animals live in poor conditions, to the point were some did die, and others needed to be euthanized for behavioral reasons. But I do not see her as a malicious, evil, hag deliberately starving or abusing puppies and dogs. I think she just crossed over from bearable to unbearable, and then it spiraled. Poor dogs.

[Lakl]

I'm sorry, but 81 dogs in ANY environment is too many for one person to care for, much less 81 dogs locked in a house. It doesn't really matter what her intentions were, at some point, sensibility has to come in to play. If you are continuing to allow these dogs to breed when you cannot afford to feed or care for them, then why should anyone sympathize?

An uncaring zero should just euthanize these dogs? Why should it even get to that point? None of this makes any sense to me at all. There's more to caring for a dog than just feeding it and cleaning poop. I don't feel sorry for this woman at all. I feel sorry for those dogs...