OPD seizes 26 starving dogs from Payne Street house; 2 arrested

Olney police removed 26 dogs from a urine-and-feces-infested home on Payne Street on Friday and arrested wo people in connection with the massive animal cruelty case that sprang from a health-and-safety inspection, Chief Dan Birbeck said.

“This was a cascading sequence of events that led us to a cruelty case,” he said. “As we started uncovering more evidence at the house, it became apparent that these dogs were suffering and they needed to be rescued. The message is for people to take care of their animals and if you don’t and it’s severe enough and … we find an animal has been abused you will be arrested you will be charged.”

Olney police found the dogs, of various breeds and sizes, malnourished and filthy when they served a warrant to search 411 Payne St., he said. They were kept in makeshift pens inside the home’s closets and bathrooms behind old-fashioned box springs, in an inaccessible part of the house whose doors were barricaded with furniture, he said.

“You couldn’t access them. Every door was barricaded with furniture so the dogs couldn’t get out,” he said. “When we got to the back of the house we made an arrest decision and we arrested them on the spot for ongoing animal cruelty. You could smell the feces from outside the house.” Police received a report about a possible violation of the city ordinance limiting dogs to four per residence from Olney Animal Control Officer Hollie Hawkins, who had seen some of the dogs through windows and smelled feces coming from inside the home, Chief Birbeck said. When the tenants would not allow her to inspect the house last Wednesday, police executed a warrant for suspected health and safety code violations, he said.

“They were locked into bathrooms and closets totally covered in feces and urine,” he said. “The smell of ammonia was so strong it was hard to breathe from so much urine in the house. Basically, they were living in their own feces.”

Police arrested the tenants, Jerry Wayne York, 45, and Tracy Lynn York, 55, for ongoing animal cruelty. They booked at Young County Jail on charges of cruelty to non-livestock animals, and released on bond over the weekend, jail records show. Tracy York also was charged with evidence tampering for allegedly attempting to break up a methamphetamine pipe and throw it out of the window of the police cruiser.

The Police Department called on City workers to help transport the animals to the Humane Society of Young County, where they were examined, bathed, vaccinated, and medicated, if necessary.

The animals will be held for at least 20 days, he said.

“Some were very loving, some were very scared, some were very aggressive,” Chief Birbeck said.

The house must be brought up to code and pass a health and safety inspection before it is habitable, he said. “The house is now up to my code enforcement officers,” he said. “We will work with the owner.”

Chief Birbeck stressed that residents who cannot care for animals in their custody or control should ask for help from the Humane Society or Officer Hawkins. “If you do nothing at all and we find that there was starvation or the animal is in bad condition, then it’s too late … it’s considered cruelty and we will charge you.”

Over the weekend, Chief Birbeck and Officer Hawkins helped Humane Society staff feed and play with the emaciated dogs.