80 dogs rescued from Erin home
Couple charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty in raid
By REGAN LOYOLA CONNOLLY
The Leaf-Chronicle
ERIN -- More than 80 dogs suffering from skin infections, open wounds and malnutrition were rescued from a home in Houston County Friday.
The dogs' owners, James and Paula Blaylock, were arrested by the Houston County Sheriff's Department and charged with animal cruelty, one count for each dog taken from the property at 1905 Clay Tomlinson Road.
James Blaylock, a soldier at Fort Campbell, told Channel 4 News he had the dogs because no one else wanted them.
"Someone has to take care of them," he told the television station as he was being put into a police car.
He declined to talk about the dogs or the raid to The Leaf-Chronicle, but officials involved in the raid said the couple claimed the dogs had been dropped off by people who didn't want them.
The operation began just after 1 p.m. Friday and was coordinated by Annamaria McCoy, president of St. Francis Animal Rescue in Erin, and David Barnes, chief investigator with the Houston County Sheriff's Department.
The Sheriff's office normally calls McCoy to investigate animal cruelty cases in Houston County. McCoy said she had gone to the Blaylock residence Sept. 7 and told them they had one week to "clean this place up and get their dogs' rabies tags."
She said she came back Tuesday, and nothing had been done.
"These people think they are taking care of these dogs and doing them a favor," she said. "There is no ... favor here."
Most of the dogs were kept in eight different pens, some of which were made of chain-link fence -- others were just made of plywood. Most of the pens did not have any type of cover to protect the dogs from the weather, and some of the pens were kept in the woods as far as 200 feet behind the house.
As many as six dogs were in each pen, and many dogs were running loose in the yard and house. The dogs ranged in size, and as many as 12 puppies -- some of them just a few weeks old -- also were rescued from the property.
Some of the dog pens had food inside and most had bowls of water, but it didn't appear to have been changed recently. The property wreaked of urine and animal feces, which was piled high in most of the pens and littered the yard and walkways.
Conditions inside the house were even worse.
McCoy said there was no furniture in the home, just a mattress on the floor, and the carpet squished when she walked through because it was so saturated with urine.
The scene was typical of animal hoarders, McCoy said, but this case was the largest raid she had participated in.
"I've rescued dogs before, but never this many at one time," she said.
Houston County Sheriff Kennith Barnes agreed.
"I haven't seen this before, not with this many dogs," he said.
McCoy said she first became aware of the problem a few weeks ago when neighbors called the Sheriff's Department to complain about the dogs, which killed and ate 12 of their cats.
"You'll hear of dogs killing cats, but not for food," McCoy said. "These dogs killed these cats because they were hungry. They ate the cats."
In a shed behind the house, at least two large bags of dog food were kept, but McCoy said the animals likely were fed only recently since she served the Blaylocks with a warning last week.
Sheriff's deputies took Paula Blaylock to jail shortly after they served the arrest warrants. James Blaylock stayed at the residence, helping deputies and St. Francis Animal Rescue volunteers collect the dogs. He was taken to jail after some of the dogs were collected.
Volunteers gathered up the puppies and nonaggressive dogs living in the house first and took them to Houston County Animal Clinic to be evaluated by Dr. Louis Anderson.
Anderson said most of the dogs were badly infected with demodectic mange, and many dogs were so diseased they had to be put down.
"It is a parasite that gets down in their hair follicle and irritates the skin," he said. "This is not my cup of tea. We like to treat all the animals that are brought into the clinic, but we can only do so much."
Because the volunteers had limited resources, the dogs had to be collected in crates and taken to the vet's office in shifts. McCoy said animals that were badly infected with mange or that were too aggressive to treat would have to be put down.
"If they are aggressive, they won't let us give them the care that they need, so we can't get them well enough to be adopted out," McCoy said. "Anything that doesn't have the mange we can hold at the shelter until this matter is settled."
Anderson said some of the dogs are healthy enough to be adopted.
"Most of the puppies look OK," he said. "I hope there will be some that can be saved."
Kathleen Price, a volunteer with St. Francis Animal Rescue, said the situation was the worst she had seen.
"Most people who live out in the county have a lot of dogs, but this is out of control," she said. "They are suffering, and they look pitiful. It's fine to take in one or two, but why keep inbreeding them with the same health problems? You just can't be kind and put a dog through this."
But he's right, it does illustrate the danger of do-gooders. 
