Authorities Rescue 400 Dogs From Breeder

BETHPAGE, Tenn. -- Sumner County Sheriff's Deputies were at the scene Friday of a large animal rescue in middle Tennessee.
Slideshow: Authorities, Volunteers Rescue 400 Dogs From Home

Workers from 12 different agencies were in the Bethpage community where they were rounding up as many as 400 dogs from a local breeder.


Officials said the breeder of the dogs let the number of dogs she kept get out of hand.

The dogs belong to Irene Muser. Authorities said she has been cited because she let her breeding business get out of hand.

“There’s just so many animals. They are in such a precarious position that really the best thing for them is to be removed from the property and really taken care of somewhere else while they figure out what they want to do criminally,” said Laura Bevan of the U.S. Humane Society.

Workers from 12 agencies suited up for what they were calling “Operation Animal Hope.”



“Because of the close conditions of the animals and the time that they have been there, the sanitation issues and the aromas are pretty pungent,” Bevan said.

Workers said they found four to five dogs per cage and many were sick with diseases, and some were already dead.

Peggy Olea went to the kennel disguised as someone looking for a dog and alerted authorities to the situation.

She said she has been telling authorities about the conditions for years.

“She brought out a little puppy, I think it is dead now. It was a poodle puppy. We only touched it for a second and our hands were covered in animal lice. We had to shower when we got home,” Olea said.

“Our clothes smelled just from standing in the driveway. There were rows of cages. There were dogs piled on top of cages. When they urinate and defecate it goes between the cages and hits the other animals. We saw a few animals covered in feces and urine,” she said.


Olea and others expressed concern about the hundreds of other animals that Muser has sold from her diseased kennel.




Investigators said they would look into that as well.

“She generally sells within the community and probably within southern Kentucky and all over Tennessee. People have come to the house to buy animals so they are probably somewhat in the radius,” Bevan said.

“How could you come to this property and look at this and go, ‘This is OK’?” Olea said.

Most of the dogs were small breeds -- Pomeranians, Dachshunds and Shih Tzus and other types of small dogs.

The animals were to be loaded up and taken to a warehouse in Gallatin where veterinarians can examine them, officials said.

The healthy dogs will be separated from the sick dogs while at the warehouse.



Authorities said that all of the dogs are not sick and not all of them had parvo and that some would be adoptable.

They also said that a lot of the dogs would not survive.

To Make Donations Or To Volunteer In The Care Of The Dogs



The Hendersonville Animal Shelter said they would play a big role in the care of the animals and they said if people would like to donate they could do so at the following address:


Operation Animal Hope
P.O. Box 962
Hendersonville, TN 37077


Phone: 615-822-0061

Reference:wsmv