Animal cruelty, specifically dog cruelty has made national headlines all last year in light of famed NFL quarterback Michael Vick with his now infamous and defunct \u201cBad Newz Kennels\u201d in Virginia.
\nPerhaps the incident in Tyrone Borough this past Friday, January 11 wasn\u2019t quite \u201cVickesque,\u201d but nonetheless cruel and unnecessary.
\nPenny Chamberlain, 36, faces charges including five counts of animal cruelty and disorderly conduct after Tyrone police claim that she left five dogs in a house owned by Chamberlain at 312 Washington Avenue in the borough.
\nThe dogs were being kept in a bedroom located beside the kitchen. The room consisted of three metal medium-sized kennels that held a medium-sized Rottweiler in each one. There was an additional medium-sized kennel holding a small Rat Terrier, along with a plastic carrying kennel holding an additional Rat Terrier.
\nOfficers noted that all of the dogs appeared \u201cemaciated with the hip bones and rib bones being extremely prominent,\u201d according to court documents.
\nAn anonymous tip led police and the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society (CPHS) to the home where the five emaciated dogs were discovered. Chamberlain told police she hadn\u2019t lived at that residence for some time and lives now on Logan Avenue, only keeping the dogs at the Washington Ave. home.
\nPolice reported that upon inspection of the residence, there was an overwhelming ammonia, toxic smell that is \u201cvery harmful\u201d to both human and animal life. There was an abundance of feces and urine on both the bedroom and kitchen floors.
\nTyrone Borough Police Chief Joe Beachem said it was very apparent that the dogs were malnourished and added that one of the officers told him that \u201cthey didn\u2019t even look like Rottweilers anymore,\u201d because the dogs were so emaciated.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s despicable to treat an animal that way and in every case such as this, we will file whatever charges we can under the law,\u201d stated Beachem.
\nThe conditions inside the Washington Ave. house were deplorable and bad enough for Tyrone Borough Code Enforcement Officer James Metzgar to condemn the home owned by Chamberlain.
\nMetzgar is drafting up the condemnation notice today due to the numerous violations in the house such as the lack of running water and heat, violations on the garage and the residence simply being uninhabitable and unacceptable to the borough.
\n\u201cThere will be a compliance date set and if she [Chamberlain] doesn\u2019t meet that date, a citation will go out and she will go to district court,\u201d said Metzgar.
\nHe added, \u201cThe focus right now within the borough is property maintenance. Residents need to be aware that I\u2019ll be out come spring-time looking at properties in this borough and trying to get the area cleaned up.\u201d
\nThe dogs were removed from the condemned residence by the CPHS to receive treatment for malnourishment and other medical means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Animal cruelty, specifically dog cruelty has made national headlines all last year in light of famed NFL quarterback Michael Vick with his now infamous and defunct \u201cBad Newz Kennels\u201d in Virginia. Perhaps the incident in Tyrone Borough this past Friday, January 11 wasn\u2019t quite \u201cVickesque,\u201d but nonetheless cruel and unnecessary. Penny Chamberlain, 36, faces charges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}