Hi, and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. Today, repeat guest Dan Ettinger from the Animal Control Report. Welcome back, Dan.

Well, thanks for having me and, you know, being part of that podcast network. The, uh, what did we call it? The Keep It Humane Podcast Network?

Keep It Humane Podcast Network, I believe so.

It's fun to be a part of, part of the network to have. My, you know, my homies and homettes, if you will. I don't know if that's a thing, but it is now it is now it is now. Thanks for having, seriously. Thanks for having, for having me. And, uh, I'm excited to chat about some of the stuff that we got going on.

Yeah, absolutely. Cause you know, I've been doing a lot of cases recently or not cases, podcasts recently on animal welfare issues that are really super important, right? We're talking about one health and the importance of taking care of animals to decrease the intake of shelters and the issues with no kill and everything else. But I've been doing so many of those cases that I have not had a chance to dive into a forensic case, which is really like one of my biggest passions. So I know that you have a huge case that you worked on, and I'm super excited to talk to you about it.

All right. Well, I'm excited to talk about it, dude. Um, I'm a little, you know, I'll tell you what, I, little side note, sometimes we get distracted in life and I got injured a little while back. I actually got hit by a dog. You can check out that, uh, that whole conversation on, on our podcast, The Animal Control Report. I hope it was a big dog. Well, I'm not going to give it away. I'm going to lead people to our podcast if they want to know, uh, what happened, but I've been kind of out of it, Dr. G. Like, I I don't sleep anymore. I'm, you know, doing prehab getting preparation for having surgery. It's a, it's crazy. Like, I've never experienced anything like this in my life. So I apologize in advance to the listeners if I, uh, may seem a little bit out of it.

It's all good. We love you anyway.

No, that's great.

So, yeah. So you want to start talking, we're going to be talking about a case from Denver, correct? with Marlene Elizabeth Puzak. So do you want to give people the rundown of what that was about?

Yeah. And so what I'm going to do, I think probably the proper way to go about this is just to read the actual affidavit that I wrote. In order to obtain a search warrant for the property. We, we got a call in 2017 and I'll kind of go through all this as I read it about a multiple amount of dogs on the property. And when we went out there, me and my partner, Sal, Mr. 559 himself, he and I had some, there were some concerns. Sal, though he was a newer officer with our department, he had Um, experience quite a bit of experience in animal welfare. And so it was helpful to have him on that that call as well. And we, we definitely put our heads together and got this affidavit. So, if you're good with it, I'll just start with the affidavit that was written and we can break that down and then go through any like kind of the process of once we started removing dogs and stuff. So.

Sounds great. And for anybody that's listening that doesn't know what an affidavit is. Can you explain that to them?

Yeah. So I think the best way to say it's like a legal document or a probable cause statement. It's a report written that will basically cover all the facts of the case that. you're working on. And so it's the grounds or the probable cause you are trying to articulate to the judge. So when I submit an affidavit to the judge, I submit that along with a search warrant telling the judge this is what we're looking to seize. And then they either approve it or deny it based on the affidavit based on the facts that support why you're asking for the warrant.

Fantastic. Well, let's hear it. Let's see what you

got. All right. Here we go. Hoodies up for those that are, well, I guess this isn't on TV, so they can't see me, but I'm now ready to go. So, oh, the way that I write, uh, which to me is really important is I, I write in a chronological timeline because I really want to paint the picture from start to finish. Versus jumping around start like, because some will start with where their involvement was in the beginning and then they'll go backwards. I'd like to start from the, the moment where I feel that contact was made and is important to all the way to where we pretty much end. So. This is gonna start on April 19th, 2014. Denver Animal Protection received a complaint for a welfare check at South Irving Street, Denver, Colorado for 18 French Bulldog type dogs inside the home. Denver Animal Protection Officer Jay Lapointe met with Miss Marlene Pusek, but was unable to enter the home due to do a welfare check. Miss Puzak claimed ownership of four French Bulldogs and stated she was watching a fifth dog for a friend. The fifth dog was a Dachshund type dog. Officer LaPointe issued Administrative Citation 21436 for four counts of rabies vaccination required and Denver City License required. As of 7 6 2017, that Administrative Citation was in collections, meaning that it wasn't paid or complied with. On July 29, 2015, Denver Animal Protection received another complaint for 18 dogs living on the property in terrible conditions. According to the reporting party, Denver Animal Protection Officer Katie Kirk and Officer Jay Lapointe noted a strong smell of feces coming from the property. A door hanger was posted for contact. Miss Puzak called and spoke with Officer Lapointe. Miss Puzak stated that she was a foster home for my fairy dog mother to rescue, and there were only 10 dogs on the property at the time. Miss Pusek would not allow officers to do a welfare check on the home, and the case was closed at that time. On July 3rd, 2017, Denver Animal Protection received a complaint for 15 dogs living at 2125 South Irving Street for a welfare check. Officer Daniel Ettinger and Officer Salvador Aguirre arrived at the home on July 6th, 2017 at approximately 2. 21pm. Upon arrival, both officers could smell feces and urine from approximately eight feet from the front door, Officer Ettinger opened the front screen door and noticed a stronger odor of feces and urine. He also saw what appeared to be dried smear feces on the front steps going into the home. There are approximately six pairs of women's shoes. On the front porch with what appeared to be feces on them. Officer Daniel Ettinger could hear what appeared to be a television or radio inside the home. He knocked on the door and heard multiple dogs barking inside. He was unable to tell how many dogs were inside the home, but it appeared there were dogs barking from multiple rooms. All of the windows in the front of the home had cardboard type material covering any view inside of the home. Officer Ettinger spoke with Ms. Nikki Gwynne, who owns My Fairy Dog Mother Rescue. Ms. Gwynne stated that she had not worked with Ms. Puzak for approximately two years. She claimed that Ms. Puzak also worked with three other dog rescues in the area, but was not sure of the names of those rescues. On July 7th, 2017, I, officer Daniel Ettinger spoke to the reporting party, Ms. Angela Angeline Lito, who stated she is friends with the dog owner, Ms. Puzak. She stated that she meets Ms. Puzak often at the dog park, but Ms. Puzak will not let Ms. Lito or anyone in the house. Ms. Lito stated that she and Ms. Puzak bought two French Bulldog puppies and littermates at the same time. Ms. Lito stated that she met with Ms. Puzak at a dog park in Englewood on July 2, 2017, where Ms. Puzak had the French Bulldog puppy, and a tan, intact male French bulldog. Ms. Lito stated that the puppy had red feet and they were swollen, and she also stated the puppy's testicles were bright red and he smelled of urine and feces. She stated that her puppy from the SLA same litter, did not have any of those issues. She stated that tan French Bulldog appeared to be underweight. Ms. Lito stated that she met with Ms. Puzak approximately two weeks ago at the Chatfield Reservoir Dog Park. According to Ms. Lito, Ms. Puzak had a nine year old female French bulldog, brown brindle in color, and a ten month old intact male white French bulldog. Ms. Lito stated both dogs had urine stains on them and were missing fur on their legs. Ms. Lito mentioned every time she met with Ms. Puzak, she smelled of urine and feces. She stated that the vehicle she drived, drived? Vehicle she drove also smelled of urine and feces. Based on the smell emanating and the statements made by Ms. Leto, I have reason to believe through my training and experience there are multiple animals living in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions. I have investigated multiple cases with similar evidence and have found animals in need of immediate veterinary treatment due to poor health. So that was the statement submitted to the courts with the request to impound and I'll tell you what we put their items to be seized were any and all animals that appeared to be sick, injured, living in unsanitary conditions or an otherwise poor health or any dead or unborn animals. Any photographs taken during the execution of the search of the property. And then we searched the whole the whole house.

That's one of the things that is really important because I've been talking to ACOs and Humane Officers recently about what needs to be and what doesn't need to be on a search warrant, right? So I've seen people that do not include enough things in a search warrant, and then that can have the The problem of things being eliminated from being able to be evidence. So can you talk about, you know, what should be and shouldn't be included? And why?

So, I mean, it starts with when we're doing an investigation for animals, you want to have dead and unborn for a multitude of reasons, right? If you just put any living animal. Right? Then it limits your scope to any animals that is alive. So if you find dead animals on the property, you may not be able to seize them based on how your search warrant was written. And if you did, that could jeopardize your case. That evidence that was seized could be dismissed and the whole case could potentially even be dismissed. So I like to add dead and then unborn because if you're impounding an animal that is pregnant and they have who will A litter in your, in your care, right? You, you didn't have the, the right to seize that animal. So you want to make sure that you add that as well. And then the, the aspect now, some people listening may say, like, well, you don't really need to put photographs or videos taken while on scene or while you're executing the warrant. That was. That information was told to me by our defense attorney, excuse me, our district attorney. The district attorney said that it was important to add that just so there's no complications with any of the photos that you take while you're on scene or any videos that you take while you're on scene, though you may wear a body camera, those type of things. It's just important to have that extra element in there.

Yeah, one of the things that I have seen as well. I'm currently taking animal law classes at Lewis and Clark, and we're discussing about the things that kind of need to be and not to be and and the things that defense attorneys can go after. And it's things as simple as blood draws, right? Things as simple as being able to take items from the from the environment, that if you do not include those kind of things on your warrant, then they can say, well, You know, This animal. Yeah, you took you have a warrant for this animal, but you don't have a warrant to examine said animal. So then you cannot really do anything about it because they're considered property and anything inside of that animal is considered the property of the client.

And I know there was a case out of Oregon, and I wish I had had that available where there was a blood drawn done on a dog, and it was argued that it was, it was done illegally and then I think it was taken to the Supreme Court, and maybe it was, it was overturned. It was overturned, right? Yeah. So, um, but it's like, here's the thing that I say with warrants and affidavits and such, like, you can't really include you can't over include things. Just put it in there. Like, the, the worst case is that you're just not going to use that information that you that you ask. And so, okay. And then some of the areas to be searched, you have to put above and below ground, right? Because if there's clandestine graves, you have to make sure that you have. Okay. The ability to to dig those up and then exhume the bodies, right? That's really important. And then areas inside the home where really, if you're looking for the animal itself, like anywhere that a small dog can be housed, which is literally pretty much anywhere. Cabinets, cupboards, right? I mean, that's reasonable that some hoarder may put a dead body in there or something in that nature. And in fact, we had dead bodies in that house. And then the other part of it, too, is if you're if you're looking for records to establish ownership, then you might expand that area to be searched to filing cabinets, or even documents on computers to verify ownership and such. So, you kind of have to think large scale in that aspect.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that case. Where the blood evidence was trying to be excluded and and it was excluded from the regular trial and it had to go to a higher court, but it was because they were saying about how, you know, yeah, you can have a warrant for somebody's purse, but it doesn't mean that you can open the purse so they were thinking about the animals property. So it's like, well, you have a warrant for the animal, but you don't have an a warrant for what's inside of the animal. But realistically, the way that they that they won to start, as I understand, is that they they proved that the blood tests on the animal were done. to provide medical care for the dog. So they were not doing it just to search. They were doing it as part of normal veterinary routine care. And then by doing so, they found out that yes, in fact, this animal was being neglected and was suffering from malnutrition. So just word to anybody that's listening that could potentially be in animal control and humane officers, you know, you just got to be really, really inclusive in everything that you put in on a warrant to make sure that you're covering your butt and everything that you are potentially going to take from the scene.

And then if you don't have it, yeah, if you don't have it included and there's something that pops up while you're on scene, you can always write an addendum and re basically re, uh, get the warrant reissued with the new, new information. So that's important.

Yeah, it's just, you know, we're there to protect all the evidence and make sure that we have everything that we need to provide a strong case. So, it's, it starts with, with everything that's in writing, all the permissions that we have to go into, into a situation. So, you write the warrant and you take it to the court. So, what did the judge, how did it proceed from there?

Yeah, so it's, you know, when, if you've never written a warrant or been in that situation, I think there's a stigma because of like movies or television shows. Like, the warrant just makes you seem like you have all this power where sure, like, you get to violate somebody's 4th amendment legally and go into their property, but it's a big deal. Like, there's. A level of, you know, meeting with the our city attorney or the district attorney, whoever it may be discussing the facts of the case, making sure that what we put in the affidavit is accurate and we have the experience and training that go along with the statements that we make. And then once the city attorney approves it, or your district attorney, then it's off to the judge and we. You know, we talked to the judge, we, we, you basically give the judge your affidavit and then you're just quiet. While the judge reads it, and then the judge typically either asks 1 or 2 follow up questions and then just basically says, raise your raise your right hand. And then you do swear under oath that what you're saying is firm and true, et cetera. And then once you get the warrant, you coordinate with the police department and say, hey, we're going to go execute this warrant. Now, you may have to schedule a time where the police department's available in this case. I can't recall. We might have just went and then we called PD. We're like, hey, we're going to execute this warrant. We get to the property knock on the door. There's no answer. And at the time. Instead of like, busting down the door, we thought it was more appropriate to just call the owner and say, hey, we're at your property. We have a search warrant. Are you able to come home and let us in? So we don't ruin your property. And she did agree to meet us. It probably took her 20 minutes or so. And that's when it just went bonkers.

When, when you get a warrant, do you have a timeframe that you have to execute said warrant?

There's a 10 day period from when you obtain the warrant to when it has to be issued. And so you have that 10 day period from the moment it's signed, uh, to execute.

So you get PD and you show up, so, and she, she meets you, so what happened then?

So she opens the door and I have actually showed this video in a class that I do for hoarding. I still have some of the video of it and greeted by about 6 or 7 French bulldog types in the, in the living room, just bark in, you know, there's the overwhelming smell of what is feces. You're in and just the initial thing is to go in, document the scene as basically as natural as it was before we entered. So video and photograph upon entry is essential. So go in and start our video rolling as we're taking photos and just basically do a walk through and try to get a count. So we have a better idea of what we're dealing with. And so. The main room, the living room had loose dogs and then a couple of dogs in kennels off of the main room to the south of the house. Like, if you're, if we're doing direction wise, the south side of the house had like a laundry room with kennels on a table, double stacked. So there were probably 8 kennels in that room with, I would say, 10 to 12 dogs because there were multiple dogs in some of the kennels, they were wire kennels. And then to, uh, to, like, chest freezers in that room as well, which obviously I'm bringing it up for a reason, but we'll come back to that. Leaving that room, walking to the north side of the property, there was a room, a kitchen. To the kitchen to the West, and then like a kind of like a mud room also to the West. And so there were a few candles in that mud room off of the kitchen and not to mention this. The floors are pretty much covered in feces and the dogs have diarrhea throughout all of their kennels. It's pretty egregious as far as all that goes. So walk back towards the living room and then there's a bathroom on the. North side of the property. And then from there, there's a bedroom and then another there's two bedrooms. One bedroom had multiple kennels in there probably over 10 or 15, maybe even closer to 20 dogs in that room. And then there was one other bedroom that appeared to be the primary. And that had loose dogs in there. There were probably four loose or so, uh, in that room as well. And so we, we, we gather our thoughts, we go back outside, uh, we coordinate with our other officers that were on duty that day, and, and then we started the impoundment process, uh, after our first initial walkthrough.

So a little bit over 30 dogs or so that you guys found altogether, does that sound about right?

So the live dogs, there were 37 total, and I believe there were 37, and then there were 12 deceased dogs, uh, in the freezers inside the property.

One of the things that I try to tell when I'm, when I'm talking about how to proceed into crime scenes is about the importance of, um, Of planning and staging, right? So we go in and as you said, you know, you do a walkthrough and you check everything out and you cannot take animals, even if you think that they're in danger, they're in hurt or whatever. We have to think about the fact that they are evidence. So you have to go out and then figure out from there where you're going to go. So, so you go out, you talk about it. How did it proceed from that point?

Well, and I think, as you say, like, as you know, earlier in my career, I think I'm fueled by, like, excitement and fueled by anxiety and just wanting to get those animals out of there. And so we didn't go about it the right way, though, we were pretty successful with what we did. I think the better approach would have been once we got the search warrant to reconvene with leadership. To have a discussion, basically brief ourselves on the case and come up with a coordinated game plan. And we did not do that. That was an oversight on my behalf and, you know, I learned from it in some aspects. And I think that, like, as we coordinate future activities, it was, it was a, you know, a good, a good planning or a good opportunity to plan around. Around this. So basically, we called the other officer that was on duty. So there were 3 of us total. Um, and then 1 person covering dispatch for the night. That was also an officer helping us with some of the clerical and administrative work. But again, like, we talked about earlier, there were 10 days to really execute this, and she had no idea it was coming. And so I think hindsight being 2020, right? I would have loved to have. Gone about it differently, just because it would have made our process smoother. It was pretty easy as a process. We, we were able to, uh, basically start with the loose dogs and just load those on the trucks. Right? We were able to get Marlene to actually identify each dog, which was really impressive on a hoarding case that she knew each animal's names. There were maybe one, two or so that she kind of struggled with at first. And then she's like, no, that one is. Whatever, whatever the name was, that was pretty impressive by her. And so we started with the loose ones, uh, you know, got account for those and then started with the ones we would just go room by room were the ones that were in kennels and just bring those out and try to document each each 1. And we, you know, we would document. So once we started to clear rooms and finally cleared the house, we went back in and then documented the house post post impoundment to just show kind of the aftermath. And you have to think too. I talked about there being feces everywhere. The dogs tested positive for Giardia, right? So now you have a zoonotic that we could be, uh, we didn't know at the time that it was Giardia, but we found out later, and thankfully none of us got it.

And was she pretty cooperative during the whole thing, or was she, um, you know, resentful or aggressive about the fact that you were there for the dogs?

You know, she was not aggressive, she was More just in a state of like shock more in a state of like, she can't believe that it was happening. There was a moment where we were running dogs back to the shelter. And thankfully, it was only like a 15 minutes. Drive, um, so as we were transferring animals back, the cop that there was only 1 police officer assigned to it and he was sitting there with her, you know, holding the scene, and there was a moment where she wanted to go use the restroom. And he asked, he called me like, hey, can she go use the restroom? And I was like, she can, I was like, just I'd be mindful of her mental state. Like, if you think that she's a threat to herself, you know, the. That might not be the best idea. Like she might have something in her bathroom that she could take or she could do to herself. Like if, you know, the police department was really close, so I, I offered that as an option, like, Hey, you know, if she really does have to go, maybe offer her that instead of, um, putting her in a room by herself, because if you think about it, like her whole life. Is just crashing down, right? Like everything that was her normal and her reality, um, just came to a halt. And that's tough. Like, we, we definitely, we sometimes lose sight that we have that much impact on people. Um, good and bad. And in that situation for her, I mean, obviously it was good for the animals, but it was probably bad for her to normalcy right now. Thankfully, I think she got some of the help that was required and we can get into some of that later. But it can be difficult for people.

Yeah, one of my big interest in forensic psychology is hoarding, because I think that, you know, there's, there are different types of hoarders, and there are people that kind of fall into hoarding because they can't help themselves, and there are people that fall into hoarding for the wrong reasons, like Like, puppy millers and that kind of stuff. But, we have to go into these situations for the animals, but we have to also be a little open minded about the human side of it. Because not all of these hoarders are criminals, um, per se. Like, I mean, they're committing a crime. They're committing animal cruelty and neglect. But, they're, you know, some of them need help, need mental health. And yeah, I wanna, I wanna get into that. Once we get through all of this stuff, because I think that's really, really important to this case, but you had mentioned something about some freezers. So what did you find in said freezers?

Yeah, and before I lose sight of it, we'll talk of, like you mentioned, there are, there are 3 types of hoarders. Um, you have your exploiter, your rescuer, and your overwhelmed caregiver as we break them down. Um, but you can be more than 1, and I think she was more than 1, and so we'll get into that here in a bit. Uh, in the freezers, there were 12 deceased dogs, uh, packaged in plastic bags. And she At first, when I asked her what was in the freezers before even opening them, uh, she claimed that she didn't know or no, that's not true. I opened the freezer and I saw the dogs and I went out there and asked her how many are in there. And, uh, I think she said like eight at first and there ended up being 12. So that was the moment for me that it kind of clicked that this situation, like Granted, the situation was bad from the get go, but once the, once the deceased dogs were discovered, that was really like that whoa moment.

And were they, were they puppies? Were they adults? Was that a combination of?

When we, when we, I remember when we opened them up and documented them at the shelter, they all look to be adult, adult type dogs. So they may have, you know, died of natural causes. How hard is it to do a necropsy on a frozen dog?

One of the problems with, with having a frozen dog is the fact that you cannot tell time of death, right? Because you are stopping all of the changes that happen once time of death occurs. But freezing animals actually helps preserve the cause of death. So if, if they died and she froze them immediately, that actually can help the pathologist. evaluate the likely causes of death for those animals as opposed to if they had been buried, if they had been allowed to go through a whole decomposition stage.

Got it. Okay. Good info.

So what happened, uh, after that point, like, so you have her, did she, was she taken into custody at that time or how did that process work out?

She was, I'm pretty sure they took her in to do a mental health hold so police officers can make that determination. And she was, she was taken into custody and charges were later filed for the hoarding. It wasn't filed immediately. Uh, it was filed later on by a police detective. That's just how the Denver city operates. And so any, any type of felony or misdemeanor had to be written by a sworn police officer in Denver

Did anybody evaluate the dead dogs and figure out what they died of.

We did, we said, I don't think we sent all 12. I don't think we sent all 12 for necropsies, but we did send a few to the state laboratory, Colorado state actually has a necropsy lab. We sent them there. And I can't recall the cause of death, but it may have been just, you know, due to age.

What were the conditions of the dogs that were alive as far as, you know, their overall health?

You know, outside of their coats being extremely unkempt, they were actually in pretty good shape. Like, Body condition score was pretty good. I don't recall having a dog that was anything lower than probably a four. I mean, there may have been a three. Nothing sticks out to me that there was in the case, though, I think they were all outside of the Giardia and outside of their coats. In that condition, they were okay. I think they did find some things when they did some exploratory surgery, but nothing that was, like, pretty apparent to us.

So what was she ultimately charged with?

So she was charged initially with felony animal cruelty due to the dead dogs being found in the freezer. And then the case was reduced down to some misdemeanor animal cruelty.

And that would be just for the, the, the live dogs that were living in filth?

Yeah, and I think, like, ultimately too is, like, showing some grace. Or mercy in these situations, like, do we really need to charge her for 35 counts or 37 counts? Whatever it may be. Right? Like, the idea you kind of talked about it understanding the psyche of animal hoarders, like, we want to make sure that we're getting the right type of justice. So, if this goes to goes to a jury trial, and the jury sees that, okay, there were 35 dogs. But we only charged six counts of misdemeanor cruelty. And then are, you know, like, that looks reasonable. And we can explain why we only charge six counts in that case. Right? So, like, we're not overdoing it though. I would argue that 35 counts would have been appropriate because all those dogs were being neglected.

People get really worked up because this are emotional cases, right? There are animals that are suffering and people start getting like, you know Eye for an eye and let's burn them and let's starve them and let's do to them what they did to these dogs And a lot of people don't realize that this is a mental health disease like true hoarding Is actually in the DSM manual for mental health disorders. Uh, so we can, I guess, talk a little bit about the, like you brought up already about the different types of hoarders. Do you want to go ahead and talk about the different types of hoarders and kind of where, um, Ms. Puzak falls in inside of that?

Yeah, I mean, when you look at we'll start with the exploiter. So typically an exploiter hoarder, I like to say, like. The easiest way to describe an exploiter would be like, maybe a puppy mill, right? Somebody who has an abundance of animals, the living conditions are not great. Right? And their whole goal is to really use that animal to, you know, make money from and in that situation, right? An exploiter may be really difficult to work with in the aspects of, like. Of getting them to comply and I don't think this is my personally personal professional opinion. I don't think we should be giving any hoarder a break and being like, just clean it up because the reality is they're just going to reoffend. Like, that is, that is science, I guess, or data, data supported hoarders will reoffend without any intervention. And so you start with your exploiters, right? And then you're the overwhelmed caregiver may be like. They didn't intend to have all these puppies or cats, right? Maybe they had 2 cats, 2 or 3 cats or 2 or 3 dogs and never got them fixed. And then they started to reproduce in the home and they don't want to give them away or just don't have the ability to to understand that they need to give them away. And they just start accruing do through, like, through their own. Inability to spay or neuter. So over a longer period of time, they become overwhelmed with all these animals. And then you have your rescue hoarders that really. Look for animals in certain ways, because they don't think that anybody else can care for them. That's the way that they can and they don't trust animal shelters or they don't trust other other rescues because they believe that again, they're the only ones that can provide the care that they need. And so, as you look at those 3 kind of from an overview perspective, it was in my opinion that Marlene. Was kind of all three in some aspects. If you understand the case, she was an exploiter from the aspects of, uh, people entrusted her with these French bulldogs to show at AKC dog show events so they could earn, you know, Earn awards placements in order to sell their puppies at a higher cost. Right? So when you have that now, I don't have any evidence of that there. We didn't dig that deep. But from what I understood of the case, I knew that she did have some dogs from known breeders and then you have your rescuer, which I think was her main Avenue. I think she. Truly felt like she was the only one that could care for these French bulldogs. And in fact, she was infatuated with French bulldogs, every single photo. And there were multiple pieces of artwork and photos throughout her house were French bulldogs. So that was really interesting. And, and then she was overwhelmed. She wasn't able to provide the care necessary. to one person care for 35 live animals. It's almost impossible. Live dogs with Giardia. So I actually think in some cases you can have someone that is just one. But I really think the main two were overwhelmed and rescuer. And then she had a little element of the exploiter as well.

And I have seen cases that that do cross over. Um, I worked a case in Athens County where the woman was a rescue hoarder. She did not want to give the animals to anybody because she thought that she was the best to care for them, but she was also breeding them and selling them. So she had a little bit of that exploiter hoarder and that she was selling them to make money. However, she also, the, the adults, she did not want to relinquish them because she thought that she was the only one to, to take care of them. So, you know, I think that there's a lot of, of research and studies still needed. For hoarders, because as I mentioned, I mean, they, they will, they will reoffend because currently I don't know how, you know, exactly how the laws are in other states, but here in Ohio, it's not, it's not very strong. So mental health evaluations are not required. They're up to the judge if they want to do it or not, and I don't think that they're even followed very properly. So, you take somebody like that, and you give them fees and fines, and maybe you give them 30 days in jail or whatever, which usually gets suspended anyway, and There, there's nothing being done to keep them from doing it again, right? It's, it's a mental health disease. You don't take somebody that has any other kind of mental health disease and you, you know, lock them up for 30 days and then say, okay, you're schizophrenic. We're going to put you in jail for 30 days and then you're going to come out and you're not going to be schizophrenic anymore, right? That's not how that works. It's like, we have to, we have to figure out how to, how to work with this. So, in, in her case, she was mandated mental health evaluation though, right? And, uh, what, what came about from all of that?

Yeah, so in Colorado, upon sentencing, so upon any guilty or plea agreement for animal cruelty or neglect, The mental health evaluation is it's actually required per state statute. However, though it's required, it doesn't mean that it's actually getting done. Right? Which is interesting. I actually was an expert witness on a case and I mentioned that to the defense. That they, you know, because of X, Y, and Z, uh, mental health evaluation was required. And that was, uh, it was, it just was interesting how that all went. I'll just leave that there. But, um, with Marlene, what I believe the outcome was. If I can recall correctly, she took a plea agreement. For 2 years of, I think, probation with mental health treatment and evaluate or evaluation and treatment and then no animal ownership for that 2 year period. And then she also was required to allow for and basically what we would call a 4th amendment waiver. So she allowed animal control or law enforcement to enter her house during any normal kind of timeframe, like, not 2 in the morning, but maybe, you know, 4 in the afternoon on a Saturday. She wouldn't know, but we would come and do an inspection to ensure that she did not have any animals or she was not violating the court order.

And that's, I mean, I just think that that is super important, right? Because, again, it's kind of, we want to, we already took care of the animals that were suffering. And that we're trying to prevent issues with future animals, but in the end, also, we're trying to help her because that's where, where it all lies. If we don't help her with her condition, with her potential possible mental health condition, then we're not really doing anything, right?

Correct. Correct.

So, um, I have been, I have been creeping on her, and from what I have seen, it looks like she has been somewhat staying out of trouble. It doesn't look like she's been having any issues. So it makes me feel hopeful about the fact that mental health evaluations and treatments can be the, the answer to recidivism in hoarding cases.

So, I'll take it 1 step forward. I actually reached out to Marlene, probably 3 months ago, 2 months ago, and I said, hey, like, 1st, I, you know, I kind of really took a, I think a compassionate approach. I mean, she was very, polite to her responses, but I just said, Hey, Marlene, my name is Daniel. I was the officer who, um, took your dog that day. I don't know how I said it, but, you know, um, but I was wondering if you'd be open or willing to tell your side of the story on our podcast. And we went back and forth with a few, you know, Q and a, uh, and she basically said she'd think about it. And I just, I dropped it there. I didn't, um, I haven't, I haven't heard from her since. And I haven't, I'm not going to reach back out. I'm going to, you know, if she's interested, she'll tell us that she's interested. But I think that would be such a neat case study to hear it from her view viewpoint and not that we want to make fun of her or exploit her or anything like that. I just want her to have an opportunity to tell her side of the story because I'm sure it's going to be different from from our side of the story and to give her that that platform. So that was that was interesting to do that. I thought about it for a while before I even messaged her. To be honest, I thought about it. And then I said, you know, let me see if she's on social media. She was and she responded pretty quickly and everything was, was pretty cool in that regard. But as I mentioned, we left it at that.

Yeah, I'm sure that it's I mean, it's got to be. a dark time for her, especially if she has moved on and been able to, to get her life together and stuff. It's gotta be somewhat difficult to go back to that, but I think it would be great for her to tell her story, especially if she, if she is no longer finding that urge to hoard animals, because so much can be learned from that. You know, again, I'm a, I'm a big proponent of. Uh, I say fees and fines in jail if somebody is actually committing animal cruelty, if somebody is an animal. However, in these cases of animal hoarding, there's so much to be done to help these individuals. Because I just see case after case after case that three months, six months later, they're back to hoarding. And having a case where we can say, you know, this person was in this trouble, this is what happened. This is how it was addressed and look where she's at, like she's the 1%. If she is rehabilitated, she's the 1 percent because from the statistics, it's 99 percent recidivism. It would be amazing to hear from her, kind of how things worked out.

Yeah, maybe she can be also like a mentor for others who are dealing with that. And she, you know, she can potentially help them.

Another kind of side thing of this is you mentioned about the, you know, she was training and that kind of stuff. So I know that there were some individuals that came up and said that. Some of those dogs were not hers, that they actually gave her the dogs for her to board and train and show for them. So what was the, what was the deal with those?

Before we even get to that, I think it's important to know that like it was, it was an interesting thing. So we elected to do an adoption event of these dogs in the same city and community where we took them from, and that was an extreme just mistake. A huge mistake. Uh, I'm all for getting animals out of a bad situation, and I'm all for trying to get animals from a bad situation into a good situation, but I think there's a level of compassion and courtesy to not turn around and push somebody's face into it. While you're like, basically saying, you can't have these animals, but we're going to give them to all these other people and then promote it. I think the appropriate thing to do there would have been to, they're French bulldogs, bro. Like, you could have worked with any rescue group throughout the country and they would have taken them, right? Right. And so, I thought that was a little greedy and selfish of us. At that time to do that, and it backfired. It backfired because now once we promoted it, all these alleged owners came out of everywhere saying, well, wait, we only gave her that dog to show. We didn't give her that dog to keep right. And so unfortunately for us at that time. We already did some exploratory surgeries and spaying and neutering and people were livid.

Yeah. That's what I saw is that some of these people were complaining. There were from what, from the news that I saw that I read, it said that there were four owners. uh, suing over about 10 dogs saying that they were spayed and neutered. And then, so those dogs were no longer valuable to them because they were supposed to be shown and bred and, you know, puppies sold. And then they said that there were unnecessary and experimental quote unquote procedures, which some of the procedures, as I looked at it, it was nares resection for some of these dogs, which It is a known problem with French bulldogs that they can't breathe because their nose are just shut down. Um, so it's not really unnecessary and experimental. That seemed to be a little bit of a reach by the defense attorneys. But just overall, the fact that they were, they were complaining about, you know, yeah, these are our dogs, these are our proof of ownership, and we want our dogs back. And then that kind of held these poor dogs in some legal limbo.

It did. And, you know, I wish I had more information on that case. Once it went to a lawsuit against the department that really resided with the director and then some of the executives within the Department of Public Health and some of the attorneys. So we weren't privy to what was going on at that point. Uh, we just, you know, pretty much once the case was brought back and we brought the animals in and did all of our documentation in case prep, the case was then. We were done with it. So

Yeah, just really important, you know, to for for everybody, including shelters and rescues to understand kind of what the laws are. And then what, what due process is trying to figure out who these animals belong to and everything because I saw, you know, from, from you guys standpoint, it looked like everything that was done properly. As far as the animals were taken from her house, she surrendered all the animals. So everything up to that point was done correctly. So after that, it was just, it was just kind of paperwork, a paperwork disaster. It looks like that held these dogs from being able to find their homes.

It was and, if there was ever a point where ownership was questioned, like she just, let's say like when we were talking to her and establishing ownership, I mean, like as mentioned, she knew every single name of those dogs, but if she knew it at one point said like, you know, this one belongs to. Whoever Luann Strickland, and that's actually another hoarding case. That's crazy that I brought that up. We can talk about that one day. She had over 400 animals. It's a wild case in Colorado. Um, anyway, um, yeah, you can Google Luann Strickland. That's a, but let's say she did say that they. Belong to somebody else. We would have paused, right? We would have said like, okay, let's investigate that. No. Oh, here's here's what's crazy, too. I remember this. So some of those animals had microchips and when we, when we ran them, none of them are registered and then after they made these allegations that they were theirs, they went back in and changed the microchip to match the owner or the alleged owner. So it's kind of kind of sneaky stuff that they were doing.

Yeah, I saw that because I thought, you know, they were saying like, Oh yeah, it was her microchips. Clearly it's our dogs and no, we didn't, we didn't register until after the fact because we forgot. No, like most breeders like that will microchip their dogs. As soon as, you know, they're old enough to get microchip. So, just the fact that they were microchip doesn't mean that they were their property. It just means that they were a dog. That one of the, one of the people also said, Yeah, we have genetic testing that can show that that dog is from our litter. Right, but you could have sold the dog. You could have given the dog away. That doesn't really mean that you own these dogs. Right. I like, uh, something about possession being nine tenths of the law. These people are saying, uh, this is my dog and I love my dog and I. You know, cared for my dog but from what I read, a lot of these people said, well, I met her but I never saw where she was at. Like, they did not do their due diligence in making sure where these dogs were gonna be kept at. Like, they were just looking at the dogs being trained and shown and then Making profit off them and their babies.

Yeah, so, I mean, I was, it was a really interesting case from the aspects of, like, all the different elements that it met. It was, um, it was a great learning experience, something that I value and, you know, I, I really think that as we continue to move forward in this profession, that we can share some of these things and learn from it for other, other officers and other agencies throughout the country or world.

Nothing ever, ever truly goes exactly to plan. Uh, a lot of the cases that I work with, especially with like national organizations and stuff, they're like, this is our plan A, and then this is our plan B, C, D, E, and F, right? Because you just never know what exactly you're going to, you're going to find out. Uh, but as long as we do our best and learn from it. then I think that there's, there's something to be gained.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I would completely agree with that.

Is there anything else about this case that you think that we've missed or that we need to bring up to educate our listeners?

I think it's just important to, for me, and to reiterate where I'm at. Hindsight, obviously being 2020, like I would not have Gone about it as quickly as I did now, like, as I'm sitting now, if I got a case presented that way, I would do my due diligence and try to really figure out the best approach. Um, not that we did anything with you. Yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Like, not that we did anything wrong on day 1. I mean, we were able to really document the scene and get the animals and do all the things, but I think we could have just gone about it in a better way. I mean, we still got the outcome that we. Desired and that was the mental health eval and treatment and you know, the no animal ownership for a period of time and certain things. So, I mean, at the end, like the outcome was still beneficial to the animals and I think beneficial to miss Puzak really, but I would have liked to have gone into the case a little differently.

It's so important to, to plan everything, um, you know, thoroughly and from a, from a veterinarian standpoint, I get so many cases that I am asked to consult way after the fact and it's like, well, if we had done this different, that different, then that would have built a better case. And this case, you know, I, I think that it was beneficial, the fact that she was cooperative. Because it could have gone really, really wrong potentially. Um, so, you know, just taking, taking your time, you have 10 days, figuring it out and, and taking your time.

Absolutely. And one thing that I forgot to mention, which is, well, it's specific to Colorado, and it may be in other states is Colorado has what's called a cost of care statute, the cost of care paperwork. So, the statute is part of the animal cruelty, animal neglect law, and it actually can extend to dangerous animals as well. I believe, wait a second, that might be on the city level. So don't quote me on that on the state level. It's a, it's part of the animal cruelty or neglect on the city level. Ours also went to any animal involved in dangerous dog behavior too. But the point of it is this, this paperwork that's partly law basically says that you, as the pet owner. Animal owner have 10 days from the impoundment to appeal the impoundment. Or if you don't appeal the impoundment, you have 10 days to pay what's called the cost of care for 30 days. So you have to pay that first 30 days within 10 days if you fail to do either. So if you fail to do the cost of care, paperwork, or you fail to do the appeal or pay the the fee. The animal then becomes a property of the city and I think she surrendered all of them though, if I'm not mistaken. So I don't think she even did the paperwork, she just surrendered ownership.

Yeah, from what I read, it looks like she surrendered them almost immediately. Yeah. And it makes you wonder what part of that is the overwhelmed caregiver thinking that I finally have some, you know, I, it's no longer my problem. It's not, it's no longer my issue, right? Whereas a rescuer hoarder, I've worked with, uh, in cases with rescuer hoarders that they do not give up ownership of those dogs all the way up to the court date. Because again, they think that they're the only ones that take care of those dogs. Whereas the overwhelmed caregivers are, are like, Hey, you have a place for them to go. Fantastic. Let's, let's get them out of here because I can't take care of this anymore.

Totally. Totally. Also, I'm glad the listeners can't see my face because my knee, man, it's so much pain. Um, I'm like rocking back and forth and making weird faces. So I appreciate you being patient with me on this episode. And I probably don't sound like my normal self just because I've been so tired lately, but I'm glad we could have. I'm glad we could get this this information out there.

No, I'm, I'm really glad that you had this case to share with us because again, I'm, I'm really into animal hoarding and I think that we need to do so much better for the animals and for the, and for the people. So thank you so very much for sharing this. And uh, I mean, before we leave, how about you plug your cast, man?

So we are myself and Ashley Bishop. They are the hosts of the animal control report. The animal control report podcast is available everywhere and anywhere you listen to podcasts. It's also some of the episodes, not all, we're trying to get more and more up on YouTube. So we're doing video casts as well. Uh, you can go to our website, keep it humane. com. What else do we got going on? The socials, the animal control report on Facebook. Keep it humane on Facebook and Instagram as well. So that's a good one to follow. And yeah, that's kind of it.

Cool. And we're all part of the keep it humane network. So even better,

even better. Cool. Thanks Dr. G. No

problem. Thank you so much for, for being here and for. Uh, sharing this case again, I think that it's a really great case forensic wise from from all different perspectives. So I really appreciate you and we'll have to talk about that other hoarding case with 400 plus animals at some point.

Well, let's before you go, let's just tease it because Lou Ann Strickland was the wife of a Colorado state senator. I believe he was either a senator or representative and she was actually very impactful in a couple of things in legislation when it came to animals in Colorado, but the, the dark side of her is she had property out probably about 45 minutes to an hour east of Denver and this place was just, it was. A nightmare and if you when you read about it, when you Google it, you'll see they eventually after years of dealing with her, they eventually were able to get a search warrant in conjunction with, like, the state of Colorado, some of those agencies and start to remove the dog. So she since past, um, they were both kind of elderly towards, you know, towards some of the. I guess larger numbers of animals, but that was a, that was definitely a rescuer and overwhelm caregiver for sure.

Well, yeah, I definitely want to talk about that in a future episode because that sounds pretty wild. Oh, it's wild. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Take care. Take care of that knee. And we appreciate you. And for everybody that's listening, thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. Keep it humane, main. That's right.