CALAIS – A Meddybemps couple whose 16 dogs were seized by animal control officers last week reached a negotiated settlement in 4th District Court Tuesday. They agreed to give up 12 of their dogs in return for two longtime pets, Charlie, a dachshund, and a gray-and-white terrier named Oreo.

Two puppies seized by animal control officers died over the weekend. Many of the dogs were described as malnourished and poorly treated.

Richard Dwelley and Isabelle Batron were in court to try to persuade Judge John Romei that he should order the return of at least seven of the 14 dogs seized.

During the morning session, they told the judge they loved their dogs.

“Some I don’t want back and some I do,” Batron told the judge. The dogs they wanted back, in addition to Charlie and Oreo, were Ben, Trouble, Shadow, Allie and Angel.

Romei suggested the couple negotiate with state animal control workers. If a settlement could not be reached, he said, a hearing would be held.

At 2 p.m. Dwelley and Batron signed a consent decree in which they agreed to unannounced inspections by both state and local animal control officers, veterinary care for the animals and licensing.

“The dog area will be kept clean, including regular removal of feces. The dogs’ houses will be kept in good repair. The dogs will have a tether of at least eight feet. The area covered by the tether will be free of trash and obstructions to the tether,” the consent decree said.

The dog owners also agreed to reduce the number of cats living at their residence to four and to have the cats spayed or neutered. The consent decree will remain in effect for one year.

On Jan. 29, Janet Beaudoin and Lucy Copp traveled from Machias to the Richard Dwelley and Isabelle Batron residence on Route 191 looking for a puppy for Copp, Beaudoin said in papers filed with the court Tuesday. She said she had learned of the available puppy through Batron’s daughter.

Beaudoin said they arrived at the mobile home around 3:45 p.m., parked on the lower driveway and walked up the driveway to the trailer. She said she observed many cats in the area as well as four doghouses with dogs inside.

“One extremely thin trembling dog came out of his house for a fraction of a second and went back into his house,” she said. “The others were just standing in the houses and barking. It was obvious to see that these dogs were also in poor condition.”

She said she continued up the driveway and noticed more dogs in what she described as “poor health and skeletal conditions.”

Beaudoin said the dogs were on such short chains they were barely able to get inside their “inadequate homes to shield them from any sort of inclement weather.”

She said she saw a Lhasa apso type dog lying in a snowbank about three feet from its doghouse. “She made no attempt to get up and laid there and barked with a very faint weak bark. It appeared that her condition was so poor that it would be too much for her to stand,” Beaudoin said in her written statement.

Beaudoin said she went to the door of the trailer and knocked. She said she heard the television playing. “I heard a female voice holler ‘Shut up you God damn mutts,'” she said. Beaudoin decided to leave the property and report the matter to animal control officials.

On Feb. 5, state humane agent John Grundman directed Meddybemps Animal Control Officer Harry J. Smith III to go to the Dwelley-Batron residence. Smith said he had to walk through a maze of junk vehicles, piles of wood, old appliances and other assorted “junk and stuff” to get to the house.

He said Batron told him to leave her property. “I told her OK, but that I’d come back, probably with a sheriff. She said, ‘Fine, go get a cop,’ and I left,” Smith said in the statement he filed with the court.

Smith said he noted the couple had used abandoned wooden crates for doghouses. “I also saw no sign of food or water dishes, he said.

The next day, Grundman visited the residence. He said he knocked of the door several times, but the television was “blaring quite loudly inside.”

Grundman said he saw several thin dogs. “These dogs appeared to be in trouble,” he said. He said he noticed a black and white border collie mix who seemed to be stuck in the doorway of his doghouse. “he was very frightened but seemed unable to move,” Grundman said. He said he and Smith examined the dog and found him to be “extremely thin, with vertebrae, hips and shoulders just bone beneath the skin.”

Grundman said most of the dogs showed signs of recent diarrhea. He also noted there was no water available to any of the dogs. “Some empty pans were lying about and some pans were completely frozen, indicating that they had not been watered that morning since the temperature was in the above-freezing range,” he said.

He said he and Smith left he property when they were unable to make contact with either Dwelley of Batron.

On Feb. 7, a search warrant was issued as well as an order allowing animal control officers to remove the dogs from the premises.

Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh said Tuesday that an investigation of the conditions at the Dwelley-Batron residence was still under way and there was no decision yet on whether charges would be filed.