Dog Population Grows At Turner Co. Fairgrounds

172 dogs taken from Hurley breeder, Dan Christensen, last week have now turned into almost 200 dogs.

Some of the dogs seized during the major raid that involved the Humane Society of the United States have now had puppies. And it's taking massive amounts of food and volunteers to take care of all them.

173 counts of inhumane treatment of animals are the charges that were filed Thursday against 55 year old Dan Christensen of Hurley. Each charge comes with a maximum penalty of one year in the county jail. Christensen is set to appear in court for those charges on September 21st. 

But, while the legal battle is going on inside the courtroom, a different scene continues at the Turner County Fairgrounds where new puppies have added to the workload.

Hundreds of dogs now fill the expo building at the fairgrounds and the number is getting bigger by the day.

"In the last week there's probably been two new moms, and we have a maternity section over here too, where they are either brand new or they're going to have, so right now I think there's four other pregnant ones," Brittni Burton with Second Chance Rescue Center said.

Officials with Second Chance Rescue say 20 puppies have been born at the fairgrounds in the last week and it's taking dozens of volunteers to help them take care of all of the dogs. 

"We've had volunteers coming out all day and we've actually had to turn some down. 'Hey we have nothing for you to do it's all done, it's clean come back tomorrow,' and they'll just keep coming back," Burton said.

It not only takes volunteers to keep kennels clean and walk the dogs, but it's taking hundreds of pounds of food. Bags of Puppy Chow and Dog Chow are stacked in several piles. The dogs eat almost 300 pounds of food a day, most of that has been donated as well.

"So many people just volunteered and donated everything and anything that we needed, not just dog food," Burton said.

And Second Chance Rescue hopes the community continues to help out because with the legal process just starting it may be months before the dogs find a future home.

Second Chance Rescue says because most of the food and help has been donated there haven't been too many extra costs, but depending on how long they have to take care of the dogs the bills could start piling up and those costs would ultimately be covered by Turner County.