INDIANA -- Donna Montoya’s life has fallen apart in the months since officers with Porter County Animal Control seized dozens of dogs from her Chesterton-area property.
“I go to the store and people say, ‘There is the dog killer,’ ” Montoya said during a recent phone interview punctuated by occasional tears. “They completely ruined my life.”
Law enforcement officials said the case was the worst incident of animal hoarding they had seen in Porter County.
Officers took most of the animals Jan. 11 and 12, and more were taken in mid-February. The dogs bit three people on the first day of the raid.
The sheer number of dogs — 105 in all, including seven puppies Montoya relinquished to the Porter County Animal Shelter a week before officers arrived at her door — overwhelmed the county’s resources to handle them all at one time.
Many of the dogs have found new homes, been placed with foster families or are awaiting adoption at the Porter County shelter and other area facilities.
Meanwhile Montoya has been charged with 11 counts of neglect of an animal and three counts of harboring a dog that has not been immunized; all are misdemeanors.
The publicity of the case went coast to coast; Montoya said her uncle saw it on television in Alaska. The stress, she said, caused her father to have two strokes; he died last month.
She and her companion, George Mitchell, have decided to leave their Westchester Township home behind and find a new place to live, but no one will rent them a home.
She lost her job and hasn’t been able to find the externship she needs to complete her associate degree in business. She has yet to see the court documents charging her with animal neglect and cannot afford an attorney; She has a meeting this week to try to get a public defender.
She had previously been charged with animal neglect, though those charges were dropped and, at one time, Montoya had been working with the shelter and animal control to reduce the number of animals on her property.
Given the charges against her now, Montoya declined to comment on the number of dogs officers seized from her home. On the first day of the raid, as officers corralled her dogs — each of which she had named — Montoya readily admitted she knew she had too many dogs.
Montoya said she never took the time to count the animals she had. She only began to realize the magnitude of the situation as animal control trucks repeatedly returned to the home for more dogs.
“I didn’t really think there would be that many, though I know I had too many,” she said.
Montoya is not allowed to have pets now. That, she said, was part of her bond agreement after she was arrested on the neglect charges.
Immediately after the dogs began arriving at the animal shelter, officials there said some of the dogs would be euthanized because they were too aggressive to be socialized.
That may be what angers Montoya the most.
“They killed 55 of my dogs because they were too big and too strong, but they took my dogs away because they said they were neglected,” she said, adding the dogs had not had recent vaccinations and may have had fleas, but they were not abused. Shelter director Jon Thomas said about 40 of the dogs were put down because they were too aggressive to be adopted.
On weekends, Montoya baby sits for her daughter and son-in-law, driving by the old red brick church on Indiana 2, across from the shelter, where many of her dogs are staying until they are adopted.
When she drives by, Montoya said she doesn’t see lights on in the building, or her dogs outside.
“You’re telling me it’s better for my dogs to be in cages in a nasty church? You’re telling me that’s better than being with me?” she said. “This whole thing has been heartbreaking to me.”
(WLS - April 29, 2012)
