Dozens of dogs were recently found in a hoarding situation on September 1 in Wallingford. The dogs were found in the shed of a Wallingford home after animal control received a letter reporting many dogs barking.
Once animal control showed up to the home on Benham Avenue, owner Judy Godek and son Christopher J. Oldakowski showed them to the shed. Inside were 37 dogs of different breeds and sizes. A bowl of dirty water and a floor covered with feces and urine stained newspapers were also found in the shed.
"It's difficult to see," Daryl Masone, President of Poodle Rescue Connecticut, said. “Overgrown nails, big things in their feet so they had trouble walking, lots of matts, matts in their face, ears, ear infections.”
Masone believes the dogs to all be between the ages of two to five. The dogs were rescued from the shed and brought to various shelters around Connecticut.
“They were pretty matted. One of them, the tail was so matted I had to slide my scissor down the tail to cut the mat open to shave it off,” Allyson Eliason, a pet groomer at Beauty in the Beast, said.
After months long of investigating, the dogs were taken to shelters in Meriden, North Haven, East Haven and New London. Daryl Mansone says she believes the dogs need time to decompress from the situation before being groomed and ultimately put up for adoption.
“It’s heartbreaking to hear about the 37 dogs found in such poor conditions! While the owner may have cared, it’s clear they couldn’t provide proper care. The reports of infections, matting, and neglect are devastating. I hope the dogs can recover from this and find loving homes,” Keristen Raccio, an NHS teacher, said.
Police report there has been an uprising in the recent amount of hoarding situations, and as of yet no arrests have been made regarding this situation.
“How can someone leave them there like that? People who do that are sick and it makes me sick thinking about it,” NHS junior, and social media manager of the NHS Pet and Animal Welfare Society, Olivia Gulalo said.
Many of these dogs are still up for adoption from a number of the shelters that rescued them. Police also say the next step in the investigation is to obtain a search warrant in order to gain temporary custody of the dogs.
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