Authorities seized 50 purebred beagles from what was described as a ramshackle and filthy home in northwestern Minnesota, and a criminal case is being prepared against the woman who lives there. One other beagle was found dead at the residence.
The dogs were removed Tuesday from the single-family house on the north side of the Norman County town of Shelly, about 25 miles southwest of Crookston, said Sheriff Jeremy Thornton.
"We spoke with her, and there was no explanation" from the woman in the house, said Wade Hanson, a state Humane Society investigator who was on the scene as the dogs were collected.
Hanson said the dogs were essentially breeding at will, and "she just got overwhelmed and couldn't care for them."
The dogs were "very dirty," either from mud in the kennel behind the home or from feces, he said.
Hanson described the house as "not livable" for humans or animals, noting it was "full of feces, had walls missing and stuff like that."
The beagle that died was about a year old, he said, but there's no initial suspicion about what led to its death.
Reene Stephens, of the Humane Society of Polk County in Crookston, said the surviving dogs "came in really muddy and had cuts and stuff on them. "One of the puppies lost part of an ear."
