By Matt Clevenger
TROY — Animal control officers from the Miami County Animal Shelter removed a total of 32 dogs from a home on South Union Street in Troy on Tuesday, April 4, after responding to the property to investigate a report of hoarding.
“We had a report today about a hoarding situation here in Troy on Union Street,” Miami County Animal Shelter Director Robert Craft said. “We went out to investigate with the Troy Police Department, the Health Department and someone from Troy zoning as well, so we could explain to the owners what the laws were in regards to the number of dogs that they had out there and the conditions that the dogs were in.”
“We removed 32 dogs from the home,” Craft said. “It’s an ongoing investigation, so at this time that’s about as much as I can tell you.”
The dogs were all transported to the Miami County Animal Shelter.
“We are actively working on intaking the dogs,” Craft said. “We are vaccinating all the dogs, giving them flea medications, micro-chipping them and getting them set up so that we can get them into kennels, so we can house them for tonight.”
“We noted some issues with the dogs,” he said. “As you can imagine, having 32 dogs in a residence, it was not good conditions in the home. We’re seeing several of the dogs have skin infections from fleas and that sort of thing.”
Charges against the tenant are currently pending, Craft said.
“The Health Department came out with us,” he said. “They condemned the house, so as I understand it the people who were living there had limited time to be able to vacate the premises.”
“The tenants were renting the home,” Craft said. “We have been in contact with the owner of the home; the owner of the home actually has been working with us to help with this investigation.”
One of the female dogs also had a litter of puppies that are approximately three months old.
“Before this investigation started we were already full, and now we just took in an additional 32 dogs,” Craft said.
The animal shelter is currently seeking donations to help cover the cost of caring for the dogs.
“Some immediate needs that we have would be puppy food, and we’re also in need of watering buckets and any cash donations to help,” Craft said.
“We would like to get as many of these dogs as we possibly can spayed or neutered,” he said. “If anybody wants to make a donation to our medical fund to help with those activities, that would be appreciated as well.”