By LINDA KELLETT

MINDEN — Over 50 dogs and puppies have been seized as part of an ongoing investigation into a local dog breeder’s operation.

That’s according to New York State Police Public Information Officer Mark Cepiel Thursday morning, who said troopers executed a search warrant at 7145 state Route 5S Wednesday night in relation to numerous complaints received by State Police, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and Fort Plain Police Department about alleged conditions at that location.

He said law enforcement personnel from the three agencies began the ongoing process of removing the mostly-pit bull population from a barn there. He declined to comment on pending charges, however.

He said, “Charges are possible today, but when we conduct an investigation such as this and have to seize animals, it takes time.”

As of 6:45 p.m. Thursday, no information about charges was available.

Local shelters like the Ayres Memorial Animal Shelter, which has taken in a few of the animals, and pet rescue associations are assisting with housing, Cepiel said, noting that it’s too early to tell if any of the canines need to be euthanized.

He said the current cold weather was a factor in taking the animals from the canines’ owner, who has been identified in e-mails from animal rights advocates as Joseph Marriott.

The animals were being sheltered in an empty cow barn.

A Facebook page that’s reportedly linked to the operation, Sickpuppyz Pitbull Kennels (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sickpuppyz-pitbull-kennels/), has more than a half dozen photo galleries. Some of the images depict what appear to be healthy dogs, some of whom are interacting with people.

Other albums display chained-up animals housed in a dark area (presumably the barn), in a yard with dog houses and short runs, or in fenced-in wire pens.

An untitled album loaded about four months ago displays a chained, emaciated female nursing a number of puppies.

The local business joined Facebook on Dec. 19, 2011 and contains numerous recent posts by animal lovers who condemned the breeder and his operation. One person wrote “What the [expletive]!!!???!!!...is the matter with you people...you should be left out in the barn with no bedding and no heat...TONIGHT!”

Another recent poster wrote: “You should rot in [expletive]. Animals aren't property, they have needs and emotions like people do…”

Others wrote profanities and insults.

Additionally, a man named Edward Smathers, who has apparent ties to an animal rights group, claimed in an e-mail to this publication that a puppy purchased from the breeder was “severely ill and contagious due to its environment. It had to be quarantined.”

Marriott on Thursday morning said, “I’ve had my kennel since I was a kid. I was raised with these when I was growing up.”

He continued, “I’m not very happy. They’re holding them on me.”

Marriott claimed that only two days before the execution of the search warrant, the Sheriff’s Office and dog warden “said I was OK.”

While Minden Dog Control Officer and Rabies Response Agent James Brownell declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, Montgomery County Undersheriff Jeff Smith said deputies and the dog control officer had been at that location prior to Wednesday night’s dog seizure.

Smith said, “We had been there and said his licensing and rabies vaccinations were OK, but we were still investigating” the sheltering conditions. He said the animals had food and water.

Under New York State Agriculture and Markets regulations, Smith said a breeder must provide each animal with individual housing with hay bedding.

Specifically, the Ag and Markets regulations stipulate that animals under the care of pet breeders should be housed in structurally-sound, sufficiently-spaced “primary enclosures or cages,” maintained in good repair to contain and protect the animal from injury.

Further, it stipulates that surfaces “shall have an impervious surface so as not to permit the absorption of fluids and which can be thoroughly and repeatedly cleaned and disinfected without retaining odors.”

Additionally, the housing facilities must be “adequately ventilated at all times to provide for the health and well-being of the animal. Ventilation shall be provided by natural or mechanical means”; and the “temperature shall be regulated by heating and cooling to sufficiently protect each animal from extremes of temperature and shall not be permitted to fall below or rise above ranges which would pose a health hazard to the animal.”

Smith said the three law enforcement agencies have been working together, with State Police assuming lead agency status in moving forward with charges.

“The main objective is to get the dogs in safe, secure housing,” he said.

Fort Plain Police Chief Robert Thomas said that a dozen of the animals removed from the Route 5S premises belong to a Fort Plain man who was arrested during a December drug raid in the village.

On Thursday afternoon, Thomas said that Timothy M. Hart, 29, who was arrested in early December in connection with his alleged possession and sale of drugs, had a little kennel on Reid Street. When he was incarcerated, care for the dogs allegedly fell to his mother, Karen Sweet. Sweet was subsequently arrested because she wasn’t caring for the animals properly, Thomas alleged.

“We realized that the water and food was insufficient,” he said.

Thomas continued, “[Sweet] told the judge she’d move the animals to a place on Route 5S. We were told the animals would be confined in a house.”

He said those animals were placed there late last week. In a follow-up visit, officials “realized what the conditions were,” Thomas said, noting that State Police removed the dogs Wednesday during the day, “right away, as a result of a court order.”

Marriott’s neighbors, Tammy and Russell Van Valkenburg, said they often heard the yelping and barking of the many dogs housed in the barn at 7145 state Route 5S since the residents moved there last February; and on several occasions, they said were frightened by a couple of their neighbor’s loose pit bulls who were sitting in front of their trailer window, taunting their pet.

On one occasion, Russell said he went to the barn to talk to the dogs’ owner. He described the scene as “wall-to-wall and stall-to-stall dogs.”

Tammy, who said they had complained to officials about the neighbors’ dogs in the past, said, “My question is, Why didn’t the dog warden do anything?”

Another neighbor, Neal Oeser, said he had also encountered a couple of loose house pets from the residence at 7145 when his sheep were out a couple of months ago. His sheep dog chased them away, but he called the sheriff’s office on that occasion because it didn’t appear the dogs’ owners were home.

Like the Van Valkenburgs, Oeser said the barking of the dogs in the barn was “loud.”