SPCA Rescues Nearly 150 Animals From Balch Springs House

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BALCH SPRINGS (CBSDFW.COM) - SPCA rescue teams entered a Balch Springs home Wednesday afternoon and were soon pulling out stacks of animal crates from a home that records show is occupied by a 69-year-old woman. Nearly 150 animals in all were pulled from the house.

"Many of the cats were sitting on top of the feces, next to it, same with the dogs," explainedMaura Davies with Dallas SPCA. "The dogs and dozens of the cats were running around. Dozens more were in cages and her three rooms at stacked several high, floor to ceiling, wall to wall."

SPCA crews pulled dozens of animal crates out of the house and loaded them into air conditioned trailers.

Rescue teams say in all they found 101 cats and kittens, 39 dogs, six birds and a guinea pig all living in filth. There were five dead cats and a dead parakeet.

SPCA staff couldn't make out how many other dead cats were decomposing in the trash outside.

"We always saw her at nighttime, only at night time," said neighbor Mirosl Zuniga. "And to me that was something weird, you know.

People who live near the home had suspicions about their neighbor and animals in the neighborhood. "I saw her on the corner with a little small dog and I was like, well, that's probably her's," Zuniga recalled. "But he was refusing to come with her and to me that looked pretty suspicious, you know? And she was like dragging him to her house."

The Dallas County District Attorney's office is investigating, but no one knows yet if criminal charges will be filed.

"It looks to me like this is situation where at I wonder if her heart may have started in the right place and it got to be overwhelming for her," Davies said. "I'm not sure but it's in my experience that's what it looks like."

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