[Sarah Armstrong]

**NOTE: This is a story of what happened to a friend of mine. I have asked for permission, and she said that I could share this with you all. This is not something that happened to me.**

On March 12, 2009, I was at work when my boyfriend calls me to let me know that animal control had been at the house and that they were coming back with a warrant by around 2 that evening. He had said they came out because of the barking and that our dogs did not have their dog licenses for the county, which they did. I got in my car and rushed home from work. I got home around 1:30 and they were inside of my home, enough cars and crates in the driveway to take every dog off our property (my room mate and I have around 40 dogs).



When I walk inside, they are snapping pictures of my dogs in their crates and scaring the ones that I have rescued (caused a lot of issues with my old dog who had potty and trust issues for 3 weeks after this). I read the warrant and it had said that they were coming inside for animal cruelty. Of course there was none and they even stated this before leaving and yet still took pictures of all of the dogs inside of the home. One of the animal control officers told my boyfriend and I that we were out of compliance with not having the tags on my dogs. They wrote me a 350 fine and my room mate 1800. He then proceeded to say that if my boyfriend had just let them in the house with out having to get a warrant, none of this would have happened. The warrant also stated that they could look anywhere that a dog could be placed; they were looking inside of our cabinets, drawers, fridge, freezer. Of course, this was illegal search and seizure.



Next was one of the worst parts. A zoning officer came inside and said that the county I live in has a DOG LIMIT!!!! 5 dogs per property. I have lived here for a year and my friends who live up the road have lived here pretty much their whole lives and had never heard of this. He informed us that we only had one week to remove all but 5 of the dogs.

We did try to fight this and we have gotten a huge extension. They also dropped the fines considering we had all of the necessary paperwork. Our neighbors had complained of the dogs and had also said that they were fighting our dogs. They had no proof of anything so of course everything was dropped but moving the dogs.

I had always believed that if you did nothing wrong you would never get into any issues with the dogs, but I was wrong. I just wanted people to know this story and to check their laws and zoning laws. It can happen to anyone. -PatchworkPits