Pact reached on keeping dogs

H-B · #1 11-22-2003, 10:53 PM

Pact reached on keeping dogs
By MICHAEL D. BATES

BROOKSVILLE - An agreement has been worked out for the owner of a Brooksville kennel, whose 29 dogs were taken away from her after they were found living in squalid conditions.
The woman will be able to keep four of the animals as pets, under an agreement worked out with the county Thursday.
In addition, Virginia Makuc, 74, will have to pay the county's $935 veterinarian bill for treating the dogs.

But Makuc is not off the hook entirely, according to the pact worked out between county Animal Services staff and an attorney for Makuc.

"The agreement is this: she gets out of the kennel business (and) she has the option of keeping four of the dogs," said Assistant County Attorney Kurt Hitzemann. "But before she does that, she has to show us she has acceptable accommodations for the dogs and she will take them somewhere where they will be well taken care of."

Hitzemann said the animals will not be allowed back inside the kennel until conditions there are improved.

Animal Services officers will conduct up to three inspections per month at her house and continue monitoring her for two years.
Of the 29 dogs, Makuc has chosen to keep a Rottweiler, a French bulldog and two Shih Tzus.

County Animal Services officers earlier this month, responding to an anonymous phone tip, seized 29 dogs from Four Paws Boarding and Grooming Kennel at 13375 Cortez Blvd. The dogs, many of them malnourished and covered with fecal matter, were removed from the unsanitary premises and taken to Hernando County's Animal Services shelter.

Makuc, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, was not charged with any crime but was denied custody of the dogs. She later hired Zephyrhills attorney Kara Hardin to work out a compromise with the county so that she could keep at least four of the animals as pets.

In exchange, Makuc would never again operate a kennel in Hernando County.

"Right now, the dogs are under vet care and until we get them released from the vet, they'll stay under our care," said Code Enforcement Director Frank McDowell.

The county, he said, has received hundreds of phone calls from people wanting to adopt the remaining dogs once they are nursed to health.

"I don't think we'll have a bit of a problem adopting them out," McDowell said. "I think it's a happy ending. It excites me to know that these animals will go to loving homes to citizens of Hernando County."