Dogs in 'horrible' condition jam Mat-Su shelter

PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough animal shelter is scrambling today to make room -- and eventually find homes -- for nearly 160 skinny huskies after an animal-control officer found the dogs starving to death at the home of a Valley breeder.

Frank J. Rich, 53, pleaded not guilty today to 50 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.

A trooper arrested Rich on Monday, finding 16 dead dogs stacked in a Conex shipping container and dozens more without food or water. Borough employees and volunteers, including at least one local musher, spent hours collecting the emaciated animals and hauling them to the borough shelter outside of Palmer .

Borough animal control manager Richard Stockdale estimates 157 huskies have been impounded, including a straw-colored female that gave birth to six puppies on Monday.

At the shelter today, lanky huskies on leashes hunched low to the ground as workers continued to test, weigh medicate the dogs.

"This is the most dogs that they (shelter employees) have impounded at one time, at least that anyone can remember, in the last 10 years," Stockdale said.

Even before the huskies arrived, the Valley animal shelter had nearly as many adoptable dogs as it could hold, a spokeswoman for the borough said. The shelter was closed to the public today as workers focused on the influx of huskies and the borough announced a sale on dog adoptions in hopes of freeing more space.

Medicine is running low, borough officials said.

The shelter is seeking donations of Hills Science Diet Advanced Fitness Original dog food, metal dog bowls, blankets, towels and material such as dry straw, tarps, zip ties and plywood that can be used to build shelters for the dogs.

Shelter workers and employees stayed until about 3:30 this morning checking the health of the new dogs, said veterinarian Katrina Zwolinski said in the shelter lobby today. Barks echoed from every corner of the building.

They are in "horrible" condition, she said.

"All of the dogs have long hair, and you can still see the hip bones ... Their spines. Their ribs. They're all very, very thin," Zwolinski.

The dogs appear to be a mix of Siberian huskies and malamutes, she said. "They're not being bred for mushers. They're being bred for pets."

Rich, who lives in the Montana Creek Area near Mile 92 of the Parks Highway, was cited in 2007 for unsanitary conditions at his kennel, according to the borough.

The latest investigation began when a tipster called Mat-Su animal control officer Darla Tampke Erskine on Saturday to report that Rich had quit his job and that 75 of his dogs had died, according to a trooper affidavit.

Borough officials knew Rich has had as many as 170 dogs in the past and say he has a kennel licensing pending to house 168 dogs, according to troopers.

Erskine drove to Rich's property on Sunday, finding more than 100 dogs, troopers said. Most were emaciated and dehydrated with little or no body fat. There were no food or water dishes in sight, troopers said.

Erskine obtained a search warrant to remove the dogs and retuned on Monday with trooper Shayne Calt.

Calt said he found the dogs thin and shivering in zero-degree temperatures. "The dogs had eaten a large part of the fresh snow around them and some did not have any fresh snow remaining, indicating that they had not been given water for an extended period of time."

"I observed several of the dogs eating their own feces," Calt wrote.

All told, at least 22 animals were dead, including two in the bed of a truck and two still chained to their kennels, the trooper said.

Rich, who said in court today that he most recently worked as a "maintenance manager," told troopers he quit his job in October and was struggling to feed the dogs.

Asked why he has so many animals, Rich told troopers he breeds and sells the animals, according to the affidavit.

"Rich stated that he prioritizes the food by giving it to the puppies first, because he sells the puppies," Calt wrote.

The breeder told Palmer Magistrate Craig Condie that he was unemployed for about four months out of the past year, and made only about $24,000 in 2010.

He was being held today at Mat-Su Pretrial Facility. Condie entered a not-guilty plea on Rich's behalf, with bail set at $5,000. The breeder is not allowed to take care of any dogs as a condition of his release.

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