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



## MYBELLAROCKS (Jun 2, 2011)

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:help:. 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


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## Klamari (Aug 6, 2010)

The link didn't work for me?


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## MYBELLAROCKS (Jun 2, 2011)

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


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

_“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!


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## MYBELLAROCKS (Jun 2, 2011)

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.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

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)


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## MYBELLAROCKS (Jun 2, 2011)

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.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

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


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

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.


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## Lakl (Jul 23, 2011)

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...


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

There is more to caring for a dog than that, but not by the law. If she was feeding them, giving them water, and shelter and cleaning poo, there is little animal control can do. It is generally not against the law to have 81 dogs. 

I do not know if they were locked in a house, or if there were barns and kennels. The vid shows little to nothing. 

It is NOT too many to care for to satisfy the law. 

A total zero should not but would most likely kill pups that did not sell by a certain time, as well as old, infertile, diseased, and injured animals. That way he keeps his stock manageable, his food bill in check, and the dogs he has are being used for breeding, not just eating and drinking and taking up a kennel run and pooping. If this hoarder did this, we would not be having this conversation. Animal control would not be involved, and the news media would not have made this news. 

As I say, I am not condoning it, I am just trying to see it from the perpetrator's perspective. 

Remember, many of us have one or two, or four or ten dogs, and sometimes they die, sometimes they are skinny and need to gain wieght, sometimes, they have health issues, sometimes they have fear or aggression issues. If eight out of 80 dogs needed to be put down for aggressiveness, that is one out of ten. Maybe, if they took a sampling of the dogs on this forum, and dragged them away from us, put them in a shelter, and then subjected them to a pretty freaky number of tests with fake hands in food bowls, and large dolls shaken in the dogs face and dragged in front of them, and bringing in male and female dogs, maybe 1 out of 10 of our dogs would not pass these tests and be marked euthanize for aggression. Maybe more than 1 out of 10. 

I see hoarding as a sickness kind of like anorexia, where you stop being able to see how bad the dogs look, how bad the conditions are. I think it spirals like depression. I feel sorry for the hoarders, even if dogs do suffer in their care. I see it more a mental illness than a criminal offense.


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## MYBELLAROCKS (Jun 2, 2011)

*I see hoarding as a sickness kind of like anorexia, where you stop being able to see how bad the dogs look, how bad the conditions are. I think it spirals like depression. I feel sorry for the hoarders, even if dogs do suffer in their care. I see it more a mental illness than a criminal offense.

*I think if you are tripping over feces and have dead dogs there is no excuse for it. not to mention the horrific smells anyone would know this is wrong I do not believe for one second this lady did not know the conditions her and her dogs were living in. I believe she was well informed and aware. She has a looked gate at the opening to her driveway because she was aware of the abuse and neglect. I have driven by her property for over six years on average three times a week. I never saw a single dog on the property or at the gate. I think that we as a society have made excuses for everything under sun. what ever happened to accountability? She was neglectful a should be charged as such. 
no sympathy for her, just the animals!


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## Jessiewessie99 (Mar 6, 2009)

Why on earth would someone have 81 dogs?!


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Jessiewessie99 said:


> Why on earth would someone have 81 dogs?!



Some have 5 or 6 hundred dogs.


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## DunRingill (Dec 28, 2007)

About 15 years ago there was a well known GSD breeder in North Jersey who had about 80 dogs, and LOTS of complaints from his neighbors. According to the newspapers, he was given permission to keep some of his best show dogs (I think 10 dogs). A year later he had 30 dogs again, and they took those away. I heard there were dogs chained to trees because he didn't have enough kennel runs. Don't know what happened to him after that. He said he was trying to breed the perfect dog.


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## clearcreekranch (Mar 18, 2010)

These kind of people have a mental illness. They tend to think that they are the only ones who can take care of the animals. We had one right down our street about 20 years ago. Back then, I had indoor/outdoor cats(not anymore, all of mine stay inside) and one of my cats disappeared one night. We were told that this lady would drive around the neighborhood and pick up animals. I will never know if she had my cat. The humane society down here let a lot of the animals die when the a/c went out in their building and would not tell me if they had my cat. The woman was prosecuted(it was a misdemeanor) and put on probation. She was later rearrested for the same thing at her mother's home on the other side of town. This was a well dressed white collar working woman. My husband is a prosecutor and he called me to come down to the house. The odor of dead animals and feces was something that I will never forget.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Cats are awful. I LIKE cats. But they become pretty feral and cat urine permeates everything, and I would not be surprised if there was something in the urine that when inhaled over time, causes some type of brain damage. 

They can have more than two litters a year, and they can have litters under a year old, and you can tally up a boat load of them in no time. 

There is disgusting, and there is disgusting. I cannot imagine leaving fecies lay in a house. But people do. That is when the state should just come in and haul the people away to mental facilities. People who can live with fecies on the floor and couches and walls, they have some marbles gone. 

People with litter boxes under the dining room table need therapy too.


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## Jessiewessie99 (Mar 6, 2009)

80 + dogs is hoarding. That is just too many dogs for 1 person to care for.


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