TYLERTOWN — Walthall County sheriff’s officials worked with the Humane Society of the United States to rescue 104 dogs from an alleged puppy mill at a home near Tylertown on Monday.
Lydia Sattler, Mississippi state director of the HSUS, identified the property owner as James Thornhill of 31 Magee Hill Road.
She said Thornhill could face misdemeanor animal cruelty charges. Thornhill surrendered the animals to law enforcement officials, and the Humane Society took them to a Humane Society facility in Gulfport.
No charges had been filed against Thornhill as of this morning, sheriff’s officials said.
The dogs, most of which are small breeds including Boston terriers, dachshunds, Yorkshire terriers and Chihuahuas — including nursing mothers, puppies and older dogs — were living in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, including cages that contained the bodies of deceased dogs and puppies, Sattler said.
“He was advertising online to sell puppies,” she said.
Sattler said a woman went to buy a puppy from him at his property in Louisiana and reported Thornhill to authorities after seeing horrible conditions.
Sattler said Thornhill moved his operation to Tylertown before authorities could contact him in Louisiana.
Sheriff’s deputies and HSUS officials visited Thornhill’s Walthall County property last Thursday and obtained a search warrant, which they executed Monday.
“That is a really quick turnaround for such a big case,” Sattler said.
What officials saw on the property was shocking, she said.
“We saw a lot of animals that were living in total darkness,” she said. “We saw numerous skeletal remains — definitely a lot of bodies in different levels of decomposition.”
The animals that were still alive had to face neglect.
“There was one dog whose leg appeared to get caught in the wire floor (of the cage) and it was gone. There was just a nub,” Sattler said. “It looked like it had been that way for months.”
Sattler said there were cobwebs stretching across the aisles between cages — a sign that no one had checked on the dogs in quite some time.
Mississippi has no specific state laws that require private breeders to be licensed or inspected.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects only dog breeders that sell to pet stores, but the agency is considering a rule that would require large-scale dog breeding facilities that sell directly to the public, to be federally licensed and inspected.
“I can’t answer why ... but I can say any person could look at that and see that it is just wrong to raise animals that way for profit,” Sattler said.
She said she encourages people to buy from a reputable breeder and report anything they believe is out of the ordinary.
