After a complaint filed by Tiffany Butler, 19, of Nicholson, former employee of L & D Farm and Kennel on Sanford Road, Jackson County Animal Control officers and representatives from the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which regulates dog breeding in Georgia, launched an investigation and seized the breeding operation and basically shut it down!

Hundreds of dogs were living in deplorable conditions; feces and urine soaked, sick, covered in sores and mange without proper food or water available. These are classic ‘puppy mill’ conditions!

Tiffany Butler, who does not call herself an animal advocate but a dog lover, was hired by the kennel on Saturday, the 16th of February and quit the following Tuesday, but not before documenting the horrific condition at the facility on her cell phone camera.

The complaint, filed by Tiffany Butler, 19, of Nicholson detailed the cramped and squalid breeding barns at the farm where adult dogs, many with open sores and mange, were held in pens filled with their own feces and urine.

Butler also alleges that many puppies, a few weeks old, were denied medical attention and were kept in cramped and dirty conditions with their mothers until they were sold. Other adult dogs, and some horses that were kept on the property, appeared to be malnourished and didn’t have fresh food or water available to them, Butler said in her complaint.

“In one cage in the barn there are 10 to 20 dogs in what looks to be 6-by-6 (foot) cage,” Butler wrote in the complaint. “All of these dogs, too, are sick and have wounds covering most of their bodies. All in all, this place is a puppy mill. They breed dogs until they die.”

“There were dogs with open sores, covered with mange - just deplorable conditions,” Butler said. “The kennels that the state had inspected always passed inspection. It was the kennels in the back, that the state never inspects, where all the horrible stuff was happening.” (Online Athens)

Read the complaint filed by Tiffany Butler - HERE

For now the Georgia Dept of Agriculture has issued a ’stop work order’ which meant that dogs can only be removed from the premises from medical attention and animal control officer will be checking on the more than 300 dogs left at the farm.

As of Friday, “one dead dog had been taken from the farm and six removed for immediate veterinary care, Hampton said in a status report issued to Jackson County commissioners Friday. Two of those initial six had to be euthanized. Nineteen other dogs have been designated as needing veterinary care.“

“In addition, a collection of dog bones were found and these have been forwarded to UGA for analysis to determine the breed of dog and their cause of death,” Hampton wrote Friday.

Jackson County will decide what, if any, local charges will be filed against the farm’s owner, Marie Hughes, early next week, Hampton said

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