Nearly 50 dogs rescued from trailer

AMBERG - Friday afternoon, Jane Smith was ready to take her new dog home from the shelter.

"I'm here because I heard about all the dogs that were brought in here, and my heart went out to them," Smith said.

Just one day before, Smith's dog Melanie, and about 50 others were living at a trailer in Amberg, in Marinette County. There are still some dogs living on the property.

One of the women who helped remove the dogs says six of them were in a kennel on top of two to three feet of feces. She also says many of the dogs have bite marks, probably from fighting over food.

"I haven't seen anything like this," Menominee, Mich., Animal Shelter manager Nancy Dechert said. "When I went there and saw all these dogs running loose, it was, wow, how are we going to catch all these? We tried putting a leash on the first one and it panicked."

Dechert and some others from the shelter took dogs from the property at the request of the Marinette County Sheriff's Department.

Earlier this week, a sheriff's deputy noticed what he thought was more than 25 dogs running lose near a stretch of road in Amberg. According to the deputy's report, he took a closer look at things, and met two women who live in the trailer: 78-year-old Helen White and her sister Ellen.

Helen White told the deputy she and her sister just kept accumulating more and more dogs over the years. Some were given to them by friends and family.

"They were feeding them and doing the best they could by them, but the dogs were just multiplying and breeding and multiplying so there were many many dogs running loose," Dechert said.

Now some of those dogs are getting a new home.

The shelter says they are nice and can be touched, but they are afraid.

Jane Smith knows it will take some time for Melanie to adjust to her new life. "Right now she's just scared, she doesn't know. She's got to learn to trust people and know that she's going to be safe and once she does that she'll be fine." she said.

Shelter workers plan to return to the property in a week or so and get the other dogs. They did not take all the dogs Thursday, because they could not capture all of them.

The shelter is in need of everything from blankets to cages to cash donations. You can find more information on the shelter's Web site, MAshelter.org .