Twenty-nine dogs including German shepherds, Maltese, and peekapoos were found when a tip led law enforcement authorities to a puppy mill on Hatcher Hollow Road in Princeton.
PRINCETON, W.Va. — Twenty-nine dogs including German shepherds, Maltese, and peekapoos were found when a tip led law enforcement authorities to a puppy mill.
“We received an anonymous tip that somebody was selling dogs for $25 a piece,” Lt. Joe Parks of the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday.
The 29 dogs included six German shepherds, Maltese, and peekapoo breeds, he said. There was also one dog with a litter that was a week old. One puppy was infected with a serious dog disease.
“We received information from a local veterinarian that dogs had contracted the deadly canine parvo virus,” Parks said.
Parks went Tuesday to Hatcher Hollow Road with First Sgt. M.R. Crowder of the West Virginia State Police Princeton detachment and a Mercer County animal control officer. The two owners were living in a doublewide trailer with the dogs, which were being kept in barricaded rooms.
Dogs were being kept in “very unhealthy and unsanitary conditions,” Parks said, who added “I’ve seen cleaner outdoor kennels.”
The dogs were confiscated and taken to the Mercer County Animal Shelter…