adminA couple who kept a pack of 15 dogs in their squalid council house which was caked in urine and faeces have avoided jail after claiming they suffered from “animal hoarding.”Unemployed Peter Higgins, 53, and Ann Warren, 38, kept the “feral” hounds locked in cramped rooms inside their three-bedroom property in Tyldesley, near Wigan, Greater Manchester.
The inbred cross-breed terriers regularly fought each other and would rarely be separated. The animals were so desperate to escape the dirty rooms that they scratched through the plaster of the walls, exposing the brickwork.
RSPCA officials were called to the property after a tip-off and a dogfight broke out between the animals while they were there which resulted in one of the animals being mauled to death.
Higgins and Warren — who are on benefits — fled the house in a car as the officers tried to get inside with the police on June 26 last year. They found that “almost every surface” was covered in animal waste — and there was the body of a dead dog inside.
None of the animals were neutered, castrated or vaccinated, which fuelled their aggression. The investigation featured in Channel 5 documentary The Dog Rescuers.
Caring for the dogs since they were seized has cost £40,000 — including £10,000 in vet fees. 13 of the dogs will be rehomed — but the last one will not be because it is still dangerously aggressive.
Today Inspector Vicki McDonald from the RSPCA said the way the dogs were looked after made them violent and aggressive.
“I just hope this case acts as a warning to anyone considering keeping animals in this manner. This was an awful situation I had to deal with and one which I hope I never come across again in my career,” she said.
“The way those dogs behaved aggressively was due to the fact they were kept in those squalid conditions by these people. These weren’t naturally aggressive dogs – they just didn’t know what it was like to be on a lead and not to be in that house.’
Wigan and Leigh Magistrates’ Court heard Higgins and Warren originally had two dogs but inherited another when his grandmother died and the three began to breed with each other. — AFP
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