TANEYTOWN, Md. — A love of animals that perhaps went too far. An early morning house fire, with dozens of animals trapped inside made for an urgent call to the Humane Society of Carroll County.
It was around nine in the morning Tuesday, and Shelia Elliott walked onto her front porch in Taneytown like usual, except this time something was different across the street.
"I saw black smoke coming out of the window, and called 911," said Elliott.
It was like stepping into a scary movie, “ I heard all the animals barking and yelping, the cops did finally get here" said Elliott. "Everyone's yelling trying to get doors and windows open."
At that point, another emergency call was made, this time to the Humane Society of Carroll County.
"So we removed 32 dogs, there were approximately five cats, six parakeets, there were chickens and chinchillas, two hedgehogs, one rat, and two mice," said Karen Baker, Humane Society of Carroll County Executive Director.
All living under one roof, Baker said it was a traumatizing experience for the animals.
"Of course just the fear of the smoke and noise from the fire department and having strangers come in and remove them that can be pretty scary," said Baker.
Elliott said, "They didn't want to come out because some of them apparently had never been out, so the daylight and outside was scary."
Neighbors said they knew a few animals lived there, but never this many. "We would see three, four sometimes five in the yard but never that many dogs and we usually seen the same dogs in the yard," said Elliott.
Now the Humane Society faces an obstacle on the path of getting these animals to a healthy, happier new world.
"We recognize that they are going to need a safe place and a soft place to land and we are working on everything we can do to make that easier for them," said Baker.
But Baker said that doesn't come cheap. "This is the medical expense, spay neuter, a lot of them will need dental, the core vaccines and microchips, de-wormers and normal medications is an exorbitant amount of money.”
With a long road to recovery, any kind of donation or help is needed.
“Having great compassion for the owners that have just lost everything and having compassion for the animals that need reassurance that life is going to be great from here on out,” said Elliott.
To help goclick here and put in Taneytown fire dogs.
The Humane Society was closed Wednesday, they will reopen Thursday to the public.
