The Arizona Humane Society says 24 dogs and 10 cats have been seized from Wiggle Butt rescue group in Phoenix.
The Humane Society says they had been working to investigate the group located near 7th Street and Deer Valley Road on several occasions because of allegations of neglect. In this case, they worked with the Phoenix Police Department to get a search warrant issued.
Animals found inside were allegedly covered in ticks, had hair loss, untreated injuries and were extremely malnourished. The Humane Society also says there was an extreme smell of feces and ammonia inside the property.
Barbara Spayde, a resident in the area, said she the woman in charge of the rescue most likely had good intentions.
"You feel bad as a pet owner," Spayde said. You love your animals and like I said, she thought she probably was doing right by the animals because she wanted to help."
However, Spayde explained that there was a foul smell coming from the home.
"Just the odor," Spayde said. "It was pretty bad and now with the weather getting warmer it was just getting worse, and worse and worse."
Arizona Humane Society spokeswoman Ashleigh Goebel said the smell was overwhelming from outside the street.
"When our team was called to the scene, they actually could smell the ammonia and feces smell from the street — if that kind of puts things into perspective," Goebel said.
In fact, ammonia levels were so high, it was nearly unsafe for people to enter the home without a layer of protection.
"The fire department wanted us to put on hazmat suits before our team would go in there because the ammonia levels were so high," Goebel said. "When we got inside, we saw a lot of animals had some injuries; some were very malnourished, very skinny. Many of them were covered in feces and had stains on their paws."
In a new release the Humane Society said in part:
“It’s hard to say how many of the pets will survive such horrific neglect, but we are hopeful that many of them will have a good outcome, and are we are doing everything we can to save as many of these precious pets as possible.”
Stay with ABC15 and ABC15.com for the latest on this developing situation.
