Fifty dogs will remain with Appomattox County, judge says

APPOMATTOX — Fifty dogs seized from a Spout Spring woman became the property of Appomattox County after a judge ruled Wednesday that they were not being properly cared for.

All but one of the dogs were taken by Appomattox County Animal Control on April 15. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Brooke Sterne said Wednesday those dogs were being kenneled outside. Most of them, Sterne said at the court hearing, were kept in pens with mud floors and inadequate shelter.

Sterne said animal control officers and a state veterinarian testified the kennels were unsanitary with large amounts of dog feces accumulated. She also said none of the dogs seized in the raid had fresh, clean water, and all of the animals had worms.

General District Court Judge Robert Woodson also ruled that Robin Conlon, the owner of the kennel on Double Bridges Road, will have to pay nearly $22,000 in boarding and care costs provided by a private veterinarian and local county shelters.

Wednesday’s hearing, which went on for most of four hours, followed an initial hearing a week ago, which took an entire afternoon and had to be continued this week.

Conlon has not been charged criminally. The civil hearing is required by law when the commonwealth takes a person’s animals to determine if the seizure was proper. Virginia law allows the seizure if the animals were abandoned, cruelly treated or not adequately cared for.

Conlon testified that she has run the kennel for four years, breeding shar-peis, pugs and a dog called a “pocket beagle.”

She said that while her operation was best suited for 50 dogs, an out-of-state business partner had been bringing in more and more animals, to the point where she had twice that number in February. Since last week, she said, she has reduced the number of dogs on her property.

She also testified that she had been ill in the week leading up to the seizure and was not able to directly oversee the dogs’ care. She attributed the dirty water cited by animal control officers and the state veterinarian to muddy conditions caused by a rainy early April.
The timing of the April raid also was a point of contention during the hearing.

Thomas Conlon, Robin’s husband, testified that the dogs are usually given fresh water every morning between 10 and noon. On the day of the raid, he said, animal control officers came onto the property at 9 a.m., then ordered the animals’ caretakers not to touch them or to change their conditions so they could come back for photographs.

That’s why none of the dogs had fresh water, he said.

He estimated animal control officers did not return until 3 or 4 p.m. Animal Control Officer Mickey Martin testified they were only gone for an hour.

Conlon’s lawyer, Thomas Lawson, questioned why authorities would leave the animals on the premises for hours if conditions were as poor as claimed.

“Why in the world would these professional people leave,” Lawson asked. Instead, he said, the conditions really weren’t that bad.

The judge said he believed Conlon loved the dogs and did the best she could to care for them. He said the dogs deserved a place to live out of the weather and the mud, with fresh water and apart from their own feces.

He said he believed Conlon was doing the right thing in paring down the number of dogs at the kennel.

Martin, the animal control officer, said the dogs’ fate would be determined by whether Conlon appeals the ruling within the 10 days allowed.

Woodson ordered that if Conlon appeals, she must post a $40,000 bond to show she can cover the mounting expenses for the care of the dogs.

She left the courtroom in tears Wednesday and did not comment on her appeal plans.