The mostly Labrador and Shepherd mixes were found by Palm Springs Police and Animal Rescue Corps officers on Tuesday who raided a boarded up home on Tramview Road after months of neighbors complaints, according to KESQ.
What they found was gut-wrenching.
The dogs were covered in bite marks and fresh wounds and lived in unsanitary conditions in the single-family home.
They all lived alongside their owner Richard Rutgard, according to the report.
Animal Rescue Corps President Scotlund Haisley said: 'The house was very typical to hoarding. It was boarded up, windows were boarded up, doors were boarded up, meaning something is in there and they don't want the world to know what's going on inside.'
'Because you have a large number of dogs in a small area, pack mentality, lots of anxiety, they're fighting over food, they're fighting over space, territory. They're ripping each other apart'.
Rutgard says he never wanted the dogs to live in poor conditions.
Five months ago he complained to Palm Springs Animal Shelter saying they had given him a dog that wasn't neutered.
He took it home to care for it alongside his two female dogs and that's when the puppies started arriving.
'Why did they sell me a dog that wasn't neutered?' he said in an interview with KESQ in August. ' I'd like to have them [the animal shelter] pay it's like child support for puppies'.
The dog-owner was served a notice back then warning he had to get rid of most of the dogs within two months.
When asked why he didn't take them back to the home, he added: 'They are so amazingly nice and kind and sweet. I feel safe and secure and happy - they're very therapeutic for a person.'
However, they are now in the back in the home and Rutgard faces animal cruelty charges.
The dogs will eventually be handed out to new homes across the area. Our vet teams are assessing every injury and illness and putting them on a treatment plan,' Haisley added.
'The property owner was very cooperative. He had good intentions but I think he clearly got in over his head and wanted the right thing for these animals.'
'What we see is very difficult, but imagine how rewarding it is to reach into those cages, and break those chains, and look into the eyes of these animals and make them the promise that their suffering has ended forever. It's incredibly rewarding," Haisley added.
At the time of Rutgard's complaint Palm Springs Animal Shelter said they would look into the allegations.
(Daily Mail - Jan 23, 2013)
