Toledo Area Humane Society officials seized 22 dogs, a cat, and a bird Tuesday from a west Toledo trailer park after neighbors discovered the animals crowded inside a single-wide mobile home in what were described as deplorable conditions. One of the dogs was dead.
Cruelty investigators descended on the home in Twinwall Village Mobile Home Park on Tremainsville Road, between Laskey and Alexis roads, about 9 a.m. Tuesday, Humane Society Executive Director John Dinon said.
The dogs, mainly small breeds such as Chihuahuas but also a handful of larger dogs, had been let out of the home earlier in the morning by neighbors intent on rescuing them and were in the yard, trailer park manager Vickie Wisniewski said...
...any of the animals were in bad physical shape, including one dog that had a serious eye injury and others with filthy and severely matted fur, Mr. Dinon said. One of the dogs, a poodle, had no fur except for balls of hair and feces covering its feet, Ms. Wisniewski said...
...The inside of the trailer was covered in feces 4 inches deep, and some of the dogs had burrowed into the walls and fallen through the floor, she added....
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Ms. Wisniewski said the trailer belonged to Sheila Ortmann, a 50-something former dog groomer.
She said Ms. Ortmann did not live in the trailer and was rarely seen there....
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t is not the first time officials have been called to investigate Ms. Ortmann, Mr. Dinon said. Humane Society officers first visited Ms. Ortmann last year after receiving complaints that she was keeping too many dogs.
They did not find anything worthy of criminal prosecution at the time, but advised her to clean up the premises, he said. Ms. Wisniewski accused Ms. Ortmann of hiding some of her dogs so that investigators wouldn't see how many she had.
The Lucas County dog warden had also investigated Ms. Ortmann and in January charged her on 21 counts of failing to give her dogs rabies vaccines, Warden Julie Lyle said. The warden's office also has been called a number of times to Ms. Ortmann's trailer in the past year on complaints about the animals inside, Ms. Lyle added.
Mr. Dinon said Tuesday that Humane Society investigators had made contact with Ms. Ortmann and planned to meet with her Wednesday. He said the organization probably will file animal cruelty charges against her..." More
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