What film truck???

It looks so much like an episode of "Hoarders" that Jersey Bob's assuming that there must have been a film truck following them along.

Seems like a case of two well-intentioned knuckleheads with no formal training in animal care and little common sense.

Nope, serious jail time. And never allowed near animals after they get out. Or put them in a U-Haul with no ventilation.

Sam's Club has a big package of dogs just like this one. Poor guys. Hope they were a breed from Sardinia.

Most shelters are inspected. But they are not a shelter but a rescue group, two different entities. They are not the problem either, but society as a whole is. What we need are strict rules on breeders, no matter if they sell 1 or 25 pets. The other problem is lack of a mandatory spay/neuter law for all pets. These are two issues that need to be address on a Federal level and not a state level. The reason being is if one state fails to enact better laws then their surplus is then carried over to others. Animal organizations have for decades tried to convince the public to alter their pets. Unfortunately the public still doesn't get it and ignorance is still a major factor and proof of that is in the euthanisia rates. Totally pathetic that these animals pay the ultimate price for that ignorance.

It's probably a case where the women just couldn't say no to one more dog. Can't say I blame for wanting to get out of California.

Norskejente, how exactly are these women not a part of the problem? While I totally and completely agree with you that breeders need to be regulated and we should all spay and neuter our pets, these women had absolutely no business running a "rescue" organization. They didn't give the dogs (and cat) the very basic essentials to life, you know, like AIR! Licensing rescue organizations (in addition to breeders) would help a little. Hoarders will be hoarders and their mindset will not change in the face or regulation. Very, very sad.

The reason for regulations is to expedite legal charges. Yes, regulations are needed.

Daisy, They are not the problem!!! If there wasn't an over pet population problem then there would not be a NEED for rescue groups. While what they did is wrong, alot of people who do rescue get way in over their heads. They also are more prone to mistakes when they are overwhelmed. As for licensing all non-profits have to register with the state in order to get the tax break. But making them have to have inspections could help. But again that would only happen if states took some of the money they make from the pet industry and hire more inspectors to do the job. Even though some breeders are open to inspection most of them never ever see one. Another reason here for their dilemma is the economy, which I'm sure donations are down and people giving up their pets is on the rise. They were ill prepared for the future of these animals, just as the pet owners were. In the end you have to get to the root of the problem first, and that is a law across the country that ANYONE who breeds a pet must be regulated otherwise your animal must be altered. Even with such a law as this it would take about 5 yrs to get the population under some kind of control. But these woman were not breeding these dogs and their hearts were in the right place, it just got out of hand, big time.

LOL!! He sure does. :)

I thought the same thing!

VioletteN, I grew up as the child of a veterinarian and am married to one. The issue of unwanted pets has been going on for at least 40 years in my personal experience, probably much longer. Tens of thousands of animals are euthanized here in the US every day. Scenes like this are all to common, nothing has changed.

The cause of this, day after day, year after year is a combination of two things: complete and total lack of regulation with pet ownership, and personal irresponsibility of pet owners. There are two communities that I've heard of in the entire country that have enacted regulation restricting ownership of pets to ones that have been spayed or neutered. The enforcement is paid for with personal pet licenses, fines from related enforcement, and fees collected special licenses sold to breeders.

Hit the problem at it's source: It's easier to fix a dog once than it is to find homes for eight more puppies every year. You can fix a dog or cat. You can't fix stupid.

Well said, Stand. When will people get the message about the need to spay and neuter? I'm glad to learn that there are some areas where pet ownership is restricted to responsible people. I wish that approach would spread!

People are killing people everyday too, we should work on stopping that too.

let's not to mention all the born, living, unemployed, uninsured, homeless people, many who have children. It hurts so much to see how people are in such an uproar over disposed of animals, when our streets from small towns to metro areas are crowded with survivors of our own creation; living in doorways, abandoned buildings and cars, shelters, etc.. When will the crisis of poverty and homelessness draw the attention of the media more than just at the holidays, when the masses want to show how much they care about their fellow man. As a society we don't afford humans the same compassion as animals. Spay and neuter dogs, yet make abortion illegal, when there are millions of unwanted 'children' walking the streets at night? That makes no sense. When you live in a disposable society and we walk away from wives, husbands and children only to start again elsewhere, is it no wonder animal are the first to be left behind. PRIORITIES!

Stand and Deliver, You are absolutely right. Until we hit this problem at the source it will never go away. That source being irresponsible pet owners. As a former rescuers who has rescued over 1000 plus cats and dogs and wildlife in the last 20 yrs I have seen it all. The most disturbing part was listening to pet owners with their lame brain excuses why they don't alter their pets. Money was not always the issue either. And to those that did have a money issue when it came to altering, I always asked them if you can't afford to alter your pet what will you do when your pet really gets sick? Oh yea and then to hear them say vets charge too much always rattled my nerves as I'm sure you have also heard people say. They have no idea of the cost of what it took to become a vet and the huge amount of money it takes to run a vet hospital. I mean who do they expect to pay for those costs? People look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them a small practice is over a million dollars for start up costs. In any event we need really strict laws on ANYONE who breeds their pet and for those that don't mandatory spay/neuter should be followed. All pets should also be microchipped or tatooed. Another thing that bothers me is that the government makes billions of dollars from the pet industry via sales tax and income tax from jobs and they do nothing when it comes to fixing this major problem. Ignorance from politicans and pet owners needs to be addressed and until that happens millions of animal will die. I find that totally pathetic!

I beleive there is plenty of passion for what you are referring to...both for and against...

People are killing people everyday too, we should work on stopping that too.

I agree Blake, people should be neutered too.

Lisa, Seriously taxpayers are paying for these dogs??? NOT likely unless they are taken to a county owned shelter. FYI, in NYS there is only 3 county owned shelters. Many states do not even have one. Most shelters in this country are privately funded meaning they are non profit and are run by the generosity of the donors. Yet the government makes billions of dollars from the pet industry and does nothing to fix any of the problems. Many rescuers have their hearts in the right place but not the money in their pockets to fund their passion. Want to get mad at someone, then get mad at the people who bred their pets and at puppy mill owners who are allowed to continue their inhumane practice of making money off the killing of animals. Cause that is exactly what they are doing everytime another dog is euthanised. Make that your passion to put ignorant puppy mils owners out of business. Do that and then situations like this will cease to exsist!

You don't know the full story, so don't be so quick to call people idiots who may be trying to help these dogs and cat. Maybe they were taken from a pound where they were about to get gassed.

In a sense that is true, they could have meant well, Road Warrior, but being in these ladies care wasn't much better for these animals, after all, they practically all died due to malnourishment, lack of water, food, some were sick, one died...none had air... That was hardly a better experience. They didn't even check on these poor animals, obviously.

What's the point in rescuing them if you are going to lock them in a uhaul with no food, water or fresh air? That's just abuse and it would be kinder just to kill them than treat them like that.

It's no different than illegal aliens paying a coyote and being transported into this country in trucks. Brief suffering is sometimes better than death. If the dogs can talk, they would thank the ladies for saving them from "certain" death.

The road to ---- is paved with good intentions. They do need jail, but they probably won't get it. They are non-violent offenders and the jails are too full.

As to psych help - well yeah - but you can't fix stupid and counselling doesn't always help with a lack of problem solving skills.

Sat through many county board meetings about the animal shelter and violations in animal care - some from rescue groups and the laws are not strict, mostly under enforced, and frequently judges will not ban them from owning pets in the future or will only order it for the length of the ordered probation.

The perpetrators "love" all their little friends, and don't comprehend their own illness.

Of course the 'I love animals' line could always be an excuse that any liar could come up with at the drop of a dime. It is just as likely that the pair were collecting the animals for a research lab.

The sorry thing, Alex, is there are far too many cretins like Orton populating the planet!

Health, If the money had been there to do it right, I'm sure they would have done so. If they're guilty of anything, it's that they were foolishly naive enough to think they could pull it off. Sad.

The problem is, their foolish naivete gives rescue groups a bad name, killed 1 animal, and jeopardized the lives of 129 others. They couldn't have networked with other rescue groups to find a way to move these animals in smaller groups and safer accommodations? They couldn't have found a closer location for their rescue than 3,000 miles away? I'm well aware of the lack of funding out there, but the fact remains that there are many groups who find ways to make it work. These two women, however, are total crackpots, and shouldn't be charged with the care of any living creatures.

RBTatt, that type of foolish naivete is something we would expect from children.

Isn't it possible that the media and some redneck police over-reacted??? How do we know that they didn't pull over every few hours and air the truck or give the animals food and water? Remember, we are only getting one side of the story here and news media just LOVES to play up stories and villanize people to sell stories. And as for the competence of the authorities in West Tennessee????? Din't they stop them for possible drug trafficking in the first place? Why? Because the rednecks saw the California plates!? Too many people are making judgments here based on the opinions of some backwoods West Tennessee authorities. Maybe the women said something that pissed off the redneck cops so they made a big case of it and exaggerated EVERYTHING. As for the dead dog, how old was it, could it have died of old age? 1 out of 130 sounds possible to me!

Question all news sources, especially those coming out of places like Tennessee!!!!

Right...i'm sure this is all a big mixup by the redneck media and police force in tennessee...they had nothing better to do than make up stories...i bet they even planted the feces in the truck and killed the 1 dog to make it look bad...definitely sounds like someone is exagerating around here...

I can just see the board state troopers chewing on their doughnuts and asking each other what they could find to do for the day . . . !

Well, they had nothing better to do than to shake down a uhaul for suspected drugs JUST BECAUSE it had California plates, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. BTW, looking at the cops in the pictures, I think they spend a lot of time chewing on their donuts in Tennessee.

Is that ever the truth. It has been deemed by the courts over the years, that it is unethical to prevent people from having children, no matter the circumstances.

But no reason exists to prevent anyone from owning any animal.

There are people who have the best intentions which sometimes just can't say no. Can you imagine being in a rescue organization in a rural area and constantly being confronted with Death Row Dogs trying to save them all becomes an enormous guilt trip.

Just sayin.....

In reality, things are not great for many species now in the world. The focus upon dogs and cats is probably because so many Americans can choose to own one, and when they do, the people can be in complete control of the circumstances of their pet's lives. Also, shelters are killing millions of dogs and cats a year. Just only one shelter in Lancaster, which is actually a smaller Los Angeles county community, kills 800 per week.

My heart goes out to the birds too. Often discarded, at least the parrots survive outside pretty well here. But many just do not know how to care for a bird pet, and just do not try to find out how, so that many die in captivity.

Large birds are in far more trouble than cats and dogs. Does anybody give a damn???

I eat turkey at least twice a week. Deep fried it is like a slice of heaven.