CALIFORNIA -- Laura Vasquez added 2 new photos to Facebook November 24, 2017 at 3:46pm ·
If anyone can help with donations to save this little girl. Was attack by a pit bull and bull dog 😢 Vet is in route. The emergency fee is $150 does not include meds, and vet check. Also if you’re in the Apple valley area Dr Zimmerman will be in the area if you need your horses check out.
Laura Vasquez added 3 new photos. November 24 at 4:27pm ·
UPDATE - the goat passed away this morning. I’m so upset and sad I couldn’t save her. Funny thing it was not my goat but surrender to me and still hurt when she passed.
Thank you to everyone who donated and for the prayers. She’s in peace now and time to help other animals. May she RIP 🐑💕FYI the goat was surrender to me (GoldenHeartslivestockrescue) prayers she makes it and prayers I can afford the bill :) paypal.me/goldenheartsreacue
WEST VIRGINIA -- Dozens of herding dogs were seized from a Kanawha County farm Monday in an animal neglect case.
Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association along with several law enforcement agencies executed a search warrant and raided the home, taking 56 dogs into the KCHA's care.
The home is in the small town of Liberty, just outside Sissonville.
The property owner, a woman in her 80s, kept dozens of dogs chained to the inside of a crumbling barn. Shafer’s team called the conditions “clear-cut neglect.”
As Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association vets are taking a preliminary look at the animals, they're finding injuries, illness, signs of breeding and pain. KCHA doesn't know how long the dogs were living on the farm, but we know tonight they are safe.
"It's heart-wrenching to see. This is one of those things that we hear about it, but you never really understand the level of neglect until you get here and see it for yourself," Jessie Shafer, Director of Development for KCHA, told 13 News.
Some of the 56 animals were found in fenced areas, others chained to small stalls in several barns on the property.
"Nobody can care for this amount of animals properly. Nobody can meet basic needs of animals when you have this many animals running around. And the fact that they're chained to barn stalls, not able to move freely, not able to drink water," Shafer added.
KCHA isn't sure how long the homeowner has had this many Collies, Australian Shepards, and Black & Tans, or how long they were being mistreated.
"Their water is dirty if there is any. So we don't know whether they have parasitic issues or not. There are various degrees of matting situations that are going on, which can cause skin infections and severe pain," Shafer explained.
No one knew the animals were living on the remote farm until a local came by looking to buy wood from the homeowner.
"As soon as he made his way to the property, he realized there were dozens and dozens of animals in distress. So he reached out to a Humane Officer- which is always the right thing to do. And we took immediate action," Shafer said.
Several goats were found on the property, and also taken into the shelter.
Shafer says the owner signed over 49 dogs to the humane association. The owner refused to surrender ownership of the remaining seven dogs (no mention about the goats). She will have to go to court to fight to get them returned to her. No charges have been filed as of Monday afternoon.
MISSISSIPPI -- The Kiln woman accused of neglect after officials seized more than 50 animals from her home was set to appear in court Friday.
The hearing to determine if the animals can be returned to her care was postponed until next week.
The judge did decide to give Bonnie Heffron three days to pay a $1,000 bond for the car and maintenance of the animals. If she cannot pay, the animals will be awarded to the county.
Right now, Heffron, 64, is facing charges of animal neglect and animal cruelty after various farm animals, including ponies, goats, rabbits, dogs, and cats, were seized from her property on Dogpatch Rd. on July 13. Most of those animals are now at the Hancock County Animal Shelter.
Toni Pickering, Director of the Hancock County Animal Shelter, said the animals were living in filth when rescuers arrived.
Neighbors said the neglect has been going on for years, and they feel helpless. Many of those neighbors were in the courtroom Friday for Heffron’s appearance.
"I've seen dead horses. My granddaughter realized that a horse was dead there and she cried all the way to school," a neighbor recalled.
"I don't like seeing helpless animals left to starve. I can't imagine that anyone else would want to do this either," said Renee Cuevas.
Friday’s decision wasn’t good enough for the nearly 20 animal activists in the courtroom. Unhappy with the outcome, the activists marched over to the sheriff’s office and demanded the animals not be returned to Heffron’s care. Sheriff Ricky Adam said it's not his decision to make.
"Sadly, it's not an isolated incident to this county, because it happens all over. People, they love their animals and they just get overwhelmed with the cause of trying to care for them," said Adam.
Cuevas says there are still some animals in Heffron's care that need to be rescued from a different location.
"There are still 12 horses and I have personally seen the horses. They appear to be in worse shape than the horses taken from the property on Dogpatch Rd.,"said Cuevas.
Adam said it will be up to a judge to decide what happens with the other animals.
WASHINGTON -- Carolyn Lattin and her adult daughter Debbie Lattin, owners of Lattin’s Country Cider Mill and Farm in Olympia, have been charged with second-degree animal cruelty , a gross misdemeanor, according to their attorney.
Attorney Justin Kover said the two are set to be arraigned in Thurston County District Court next week. Debbie Lattin is set to appear on Monday, while Carolyn is set to appear Wednesday.
Kover hopes to have both women appear at the same time, but that will depend on the judge, he said.
“We look forward to Thurston County dropping the charges,” Kover said in an email. “If we must, we will press my clients' rights to trial and beyond if necessary.”
Kover alleges that a Thurston County Sheriff’s deputy did not follow the law in the animal cruelty case, and that “the Lattins take good care of all of their animals.”
“The charges against Debbie and Carolyn Lattin are categorically false,” Kover claimed.
Kover is all bluff. Typically of defense attorneys to crow about how their client was railroaded, that the police/sheriff is corrupt, that it was all illegal seizures, and that their clients will be vindicated.... then they quietly take a plea deal. But hey, Kover's got to make an effort in front of the cameras for his clients. Show them he's working hard for that money.
Seventeen goats were removed from the farm property last month after a complaint was made about the condition of the animals.
Carolyn Lattin has denied mistreating the goats. She said they use a medicine to treat hoof rot. It heals the animals, but it’s not a cure, she said.
A sheriff’s office incident report, which was obtained by The Olympian Thursday, details the events leading up to the seizure.
After the sheriff’s office received a complaint about goats at the farm in mid-June, it was investigated by Carrie Nastansky, the lead animal cruelty investigator for the sheriff’s office. In the report, she mentions that she has “personally owned goats on-and-off for nearly 23 years.”
Although the sheriff’s office was responding to the recent complaint, there have been seven complaints about the Lattin’s goats in the past two years, the report reads.
Nastansky observed the following: “All of these goats had hoof rot/scald in between their ‘toes.’ The area between the hooves, near the skin, was crusty and oozing pus. Several of them smelled of rotting flesh.”
Nastansky also shot video of the goat herd: “You can clearly see more than half of the goats limping, hobbling and appearing to be in severe pain.”
Nastansky later asked whether Carolyn and her adult daughter Debbie Lattin would be willing to turn the goats over to Hooved Animal Rescue, a group that works with the sheriff’s office.
“Carolyn became irate and told me to leave her property immediately,” the report reads. “She told me that I must know everything since I have previously owned goats.
“I explained that I do not know everything, but I know that saying the disease is incurable is inaccurate, along with blaming the soil itself.”
Nastansky said she was told to leave the property and Debbie Lattin requested to speak to her supervisor.
Nastansky later sought a search warrant and the animals were seized.
The farm opened in 1956 as a small family business. The cider came later, in the 1970s.
The farm is a family affair run by Carolyn Lattin and her daughters, Sherrie and Debbie. The cider started in the 1970s, when Carolyn’s husband, the late Vic Lattin, noticed apples on the farm going to waste. He got the idea for a cider press. Debbie remembers the tough days of the old hand-crank press.
The Lattins invited people to bring their own apples to the press to make cider. It caught the attention of locals, and before long, the Lattins started pressing and bottling their own cider.
It’s been a long career that Carolyn still enjoys to this day.
They should probably stick with cider and baked goods. Too much work to keep animals healthy on a commercial property like this.
NEW YORK -- Investigators are still rescuing animals from a farm in Westerlo.
Many have nowhere to go after they were found living in deplorable conditions.
The Albany County Sheriff’s Office has had to rescue so many different farm animals recently that they’re running out of places to put them, so this barn will become a shelter.
A woman who bought a dog from that farm in Westerlo says finally something is being done.
“Had he stayed down there he’d probably been dead.”
Lucy Boerenko didn’t know it at the time but buying her now 4-year-old Jack Russell terrier from a Westerlo farm meant rescuing him.
He came from the same place where Albany County Sheriff’s investigators recently found dozens of 56 dogs, 16 horses, 27 goats, and hundreds of birds living in deplorable conditions.
The owner, 64-year old Tanja Morse, advertises as a breeder but Boernenko says Joey was plagued with many health problems.
“It was horrible. It was horrible even back then. I have to wonder how many people are out there that also purchased dogs from her. And what kind of shape are those dogs in?”
The good news for these dogs, they’re now in the care of Mohawk Hudson Humane Society.
“We’ll be placing these dogs for adoption we don’t yet know when they’ll be ready,” Tom Cramer, Executive Director at the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, said, “We have to medically evaluate them, provide any socialization they might need.”
Where do you put dozens of farm animals? It’s a difficult case where resources run thin.
“A lot of the rescue shelters are like maxing out. I mean unfortunately this type of crime is occurring more and more,” Albany Sheriff Craig Apple said.
That’s why Sheriff Apple is turning the county-owned barn into a shelter. It’s a temporary home for animals in cases of abuse and neglect who have nowhere else to go.
“So some of these animals we’ll be able to remove from the property entirely, take down to our facility, feed them and then try to adopt them out and get them healthy in the meantime”
That’s a relief for Boerenko, who doesn’t want another family to have to go through this.
“He’s come so far and that comes with a lot of perseverance.”
The idea here is to have inmates come out and help take care of the animals at this shelter.
Investigators are at the Westerlo farm every day actively working on this case.
