All 74 dogs seized in the July 9 raid on an unlicensed kennel on Apple Valley Road have either been adopted out or given to groups that will find homes for the animals.
“We just adopted the last one out today,” said Sara Thompson, a veterinary technician at Commerce Veterinary Hospital, which received all the dogs.
Kennel owner Amy Rion-Wilson was cited for cruelty to animals, failure to maintain sanitary conditions, failure to provide rabies inoculations, operating without a business license and a zoning violation. She will appear in Jackson County Magistrate Court Sept. 7. The charges are misdemeanors.
For the dogs, the story has a happy ending.
“All of them got placed. They’ll have homes,” Thompson said.
Most of the dogs were puppies — Chihuahuas, Pekingese, yorkies, maltipoos (a Maltese-poodle hybrid), etc. — which could not be immediately adopted because of their ages. So Thompson used her contacts with Eleventh Hour Rescue, a group in New Jersey that took 33 dogs, and the Georgia chapter of the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
The Humane Society of Jackson County also took two dogs, and seven dogs old enough to be spayed or neutered were adopted out of Commerce Veterinary Hospital.
According to Thompson, before the veterinary hospital will allow a dog to be adopted, it must be spayed or neutered.
“The rescue groups will send proof they were all spayed or neutered,” she said.
The animal hospital has worked with both Eleventh Hour and the SPCA on numerous prior occasions.
