Officers detail Macon animal cruelty, hoarding scene

Five were arrested on Tuesday, February 18, after deputies discovered 20 dogs and eight cats being housed in unstable conditions in a Morrow Place home.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) –  Macon-Bibb County Animal Welfare officers detailed on Thursday what they found at the Morrow Place home where five people were arrested for charges related to animal cruelty.

“You could smell it from, I’d say about 50 yards away, you could smell the inside of the house,” said Sonja Adams, the Manager of Macon-Bibb County Animal Welfare. 

Twenty dogs and eight cats were recovered from the home. The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office shared photos of them on Thursday.

Lupe Ortiz, an enforcement officer, remembers the desperation shown by each animal to survive.

“The dogs would literally pull us with their entire strength to the nearest puddle just to get some kind of water,” Ortiz said. 

Feces and urine from both humans and the pets filled the home, which left most of the animals with respiratory illnesses. Ortiz says the worst conditioned room contained a single cage holding seven cats and three dogs. Once freed from the cage, Ortiz says many of the animals attempted to eat the feces, and others drank from buckets of water supplied by animal welfare for up to three minutes straight. Responding officers say they were also exposed to high levels of ammonia.

“It would burn your nose, your eyes, your throat after a while,” Ortiz said. “You were in there for maybe just a second, and it would start burning your throat.”

Ortiz has worked in animal welfare across different states. She says Macon-Bibb County faces a unique spaying and neutering crisis that gives way to hoarding cases like this and leaves residents to confront unwanted strays on a daily basis.

“Seeing how residents have to deal with packs of six, seven, eight, fifteen dogs is surprising and it’s scary,” Ortiz said. 

Adams says four of the dogs found at the home were euthanized due to a history of bites and aggression, but the others are surprisingly kind compared to other cruelty and hoarding victims.

“We expected most of them to be feral, but they weren’t,” Adams said. “They were wonderful animals. Even the dogs and cats got along, so it was great. They’re all on antibiotics and being treated under vet care now, so I’d say within two weeks, they’ll be right back to normal.”

Adams encourages people to do all they can to help these animals and others at shelters in Macon-Bibb County and across Middle Georgia.

“There’s so many people and animals out there that need help right now, and we can only do so much,” Adams said. “The community can help by coming in and adopting, even walking some of the animals we have in adoption zones, because that’s important. It helps socialization. It helps get them adopted. There’s a lot we can all do together.”

Macon-Bibb County Animal Welfare is located at 4214 Fulton Mill Road. You can reach animal welfare at (478) 621-6774.