63 dogs seized from feces-covered barn at Kentucky woman’s ‘puppy mill’
A Kentucky woman is facing animal cruelty charges after an animal control officer found 63 dogs “living in very unsanitary conditions,” the Warren County Sheriff’s Office said.
The animal control officer responded to an anonymous tip about a “puppy mill operation” in the Alvaton community of Warren County Thursday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said.
Inside a barn behind a home on Whitlock Road, the officer and a sheriff’s deputy found dogs and puppies with “feces covering the floor in their living space, feces built up in the drain the entire width of the barn, and feces on the animals,” according to a police citation filed in Warren District Court.
The owner, Donna Byard, told the officers that the drain in the barn where she breeds the dogs had been clogged for two weeks, according to the police citation.
Byard, 71, was charged with 63 counts of second-degree cruelty to animals. She’s scheduled to appear in court Feb. 11.
The 63 dogs were seized and taken to the Bowling Green/Warren County Humane Society. The sheriff’s office and humane society said the dogs are not available for adoption at this time.
