The animals were taken to the SPCAs Dartmouth shelter to be checked by a veterinarian and many will be put up for adoption.
SPCA officers had to don gas masks to seize 24 dogs and 40 cats from one small home in Port Felix owned by Christine DeYoung because the ammonia levels from animal urine were so high. They also seized about two dozen cats from her daughter's home.
"Its a mess, it's a real mess," SPCA provincial investigation officer Roger Joyce said Wednesday.
"A lot of people don't realize it because they are living in it. They just think it's a normal day, but when you or I go near the door and the smell gets to us, it just about knocks you over."
He said this appears to be a case of "animal hoarding" the women collected the animals over a period of time and didn't have the money to spay and neuter them.
Christine DeYoung cried as she watched the officers take her animals away, and said that losing her oldest dogs is like losing family.
"I only had two dogs and then they got together and they had pups and they kept multiplying. So, I didn't know what to do with them," she said.
DeYoung said she couldn't afford to spay and neuter them, but she said she fed them well and she thinks they are healthy..." More
