by Patricia M. Murret | Staff Writer
Nearly 100 dogs rescued from a Tennessee ‘‘puppy mill” passed through Gaithersburg on Monday as the Humane Society of the United States helped move them to new homes.
The dogs were among 747 animals rescued from Pine Bluff Kennels, a 92-acre mass-breeding facility in Lyles, Tenn., where emergency services workers found 682 dogs in ‘‘squalid living conditions,” said Jordan Crump, Humane Society spokeswoman. Horses, donkeys, goats and birds were also rescued.
The animals were removed from the property following a six-week undercover investigation that culminated in an emergency rescue operation by the Humane Society and Tennessee agencies last week. The puppy mill bust is one of the nation’s largest ever, officials said at a press conference on Monday.
‘‘As we were coming onto the property, about three-quarter miles out, I knew that none of the reports were exaggerated because I could smell the urine, the feces and the death,” said Scotlund Haisley, HSUS’ emergency services director, who lives in Takoma Park and works in Gaithersburg.
The Washington Humane Society and Washington Animal Rescue League were waiting at HSUS’ Gaithersburg headquarters on Monday as purebred dogs ranging from miniature pinschers, Lhasa Apsos and schipperkes to Newfoundlands, Great Danes and German Shepherds arrived.
The Washington Animal Rescue League took more than 70 dogs and Washington Humane Society took at least 15, officials said. The dogs will undergo medical treatment, grooming and behavioral evaluations before they are relocated to foster homes and permanent owners.
More than 10,000 puppy mills in the U.S. sell to pet stores and over the Internet, said Stephanie Schain, of Washington, D.C., director of the Humane Society’s Stop Puppy Mills campaign. Buyers should visit the facility and see how animals are treated, she said.
‘‘Generally people who are buying the puppies have no idea about the cruelty their money is going to sustain,” Schain said.
Haisley described a devastating scene in Tennessee. Dogs were found dead from gunshot wounds, Haisley said. Dead puppies lay near their mothers in a breeding area. In one nursing trailer, 90 percent of the dogs ‘‘had no water and any food they had was rotten,” said Haisley. He described ‘‘a sea of 450 adults...living in overcrowded rabbit hutches, with wire floors, so their legs popped through,” breaking and cutting them.
Patricia Adkisson, owner of the Tennessee property and two-man operation, has not been charged with any crimes. She surrendered the animals to the Humane Society last week.
Adkisson, who could not be reached for comment, was charged in 1998 with 253 counts of animal neglect and cruelty and one count of tampering with evidence following another raid on her property, according to court records. Convictions in three counts of animal cruelty were overturned in 2001 after an appellate court found problems related to a search warrant and gathering of evidence.
