BELMONT COUNTY, Ohio (WTRF) – A woman and her two adult daughters were living in the small community of Fairview with eleven starving and flea-infested dogs plus the bodies of a still-unknown number of other dogs, cats, chickens and a rat.
Humane agents say four standard poodles had died, locked in cages without food or water.
They say the three women were living in unbelievable squalor.
“They were living in a shed with no running water. They were actually defecating in buckets and the buckets were everywhere over the property. They were on the ground, they were hidden under things. When we’d be searching, we’d open up a tote and it’d be full of human feces and urine.”
Julie Larish, Humane Agent, Belmont County Hoof and Paw
Officials say they rescued seven chihuahuas, two poodles, one German Shepherd and one Bernese Mountain Dog.
They say the animals were so flea-infested that many had no hair, and had sores all over their bodies and in their ears.
They say the two surviving poodles were near death from starvation.
The two women were jailed on cruelty charges.
A third, who is disabled, was placed in another residence.
