Outside, police, animal control and other agencies had arrived to take away 14 dogs as part of an ongoing animal-cruelty investigation. Inside, thick tufts of fur coated the carpet and the air, filled with the smell of animal waste, was suffocating to breathe.
Officers entering the house wore masks, latex gloves and booties over their shoes. The dogs shook and struggled to walk. Some had to be carried.
“They can’t even walk. They’ve never been domesticated. They don’t even know what a leash is. It’s terrible,” Geoffrey Santini, humane law enforcement officer for Lodi, said.
Capabianca, 56, declined to comment.
All told, officers removed 13 Shetland sheepdogs and one cocker spaniel. The dogs were identified by name, sex, age and color, then photographed and placed into vans.
Santini said that Capabianca eventually will be charged with 14 counts each of animal cruelty, failure to provide food, water and shelter, and failure to provide proper sustenance.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Animal Control Officer Vincent Ascolese repeated to the whimpering dogs.
The investigation began when a neighbor complained that Capabianca was feeding feral cats in her back yard, said Aurelia Cruz, a state animal control officer. Cruz looked into the complaint on Oct. 18 and, while she was in the back yard, noticed a dog crate in the house “that did not look good.”
She returned Thursday night with Santini and two Lodi officers. “We went inside and saw the disaster, basically, and decided to seize the dogs the very next day,” Cruz said.
Capabianca cooperated with authorities and agreed to let her dogs be removed. The dogs were to be taken directly to animal shelters, authorities said.
“It’s nice to be able to take them in right from the house,” Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge executive director Tricia McAleer said. She declined to discuss the case, but looked at one of the vans filled with Shetland sheepdogs and sighed.
“So pretty,” she said.
(NorthJersey.com - Oct 24, 2014)
No comments:
Post a Comment