92 dogs seized at Maine home ‘Conditions were horrendous’ at Dover-Foxcroft man’s facility

DOVER-FOXCROFT – Animal welfare officials were scrambling Monday to provide care and medical treatment for 92 emaciated and ill English springer spaniels seized from a home last week.

Agents from the state animal welfare program used a warrant Friday afternoon to search the home of Mark Hagelin of Gray Hill Road. Ten agents, veterinarians and volunteers helped remove the dogs.

Dover-Foxcroft police and Maine state troopers secured the scene while volunteers worked more than nine hours to catch, inventory and transport the dogs to shelters.

As of Monday afternoon, Hagelin had not been charged with any crime, but Norma Worley, director of the state animal welfare program, said her complaint will be forwarded to the Piscataquis County district attorney by the end of the week.

Calls to the Hagelin home on Monday were not returned.

“The conditions were horrendous,” Worley said Monday. She said dogs – some acting aggressively – were found throughout the property: in the kennels, in Hagelin’s home and running loose.

Rochelle Black, adoption manager for the Bangor Humane Society, said that fecal matter and urine were “everywhere, inside and outside the home. The animals had no access to food or water. Their bodies were basically eating themselves to stay alive.”

The dogs that were loose were drinking from puddles, and dead dogs were found on the property, she said.

Black said the amount of waste on the home’s floor was so great that it was seeping through and dripping into the basement.

“This was a situation that just got out of control and it was beyond his ability to care for this many animals,” she said.

Neighbors on Gray Hill Road said they had been complaining about dogs barking and running loose for at least three years. One neighbor, who asked for anonymity, said that the dogs had often run loose in packs of eight or 10 and that people walking in the area were afraid.

Worley said that the town of Dover-Foxcroft had been aware of the situation and had attempted for some time to work with Hagelin. But the situation just “came to a head” last week, Worley said.

Steven Robinson, director of investigations for the American Kennel Club, said Monday that Hagelin’s AKC breeder’s license had been suspended in December for 10 years because he refused to make his records and kennel available for inspection when requested by AKC officials.

At least one of the dogs previously bred by Hagelin had found its way to the Blaine House in Augusta. Sam, one of a pair of English springer spaniels, was purchased by first lady Karen Baldacci from Hagelin, said Lynn Kippax, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci. “The first lady responded to a newspaper ad and went and saw the dog,” Kippax said. “That is the extent of the relationship between them.”

The 92 seized dogs were sent to the Bangor Humane Society and the Kennebec Valley Humane Society in Augusta since the state does not have its own shelter, Worley said.

“They are in pretty bad shape,” Jeff Mitchell, director of the Bangor society, said Monday. The society ended up with about 50 dogs, including 44 puppies. “None of them are housebroken – they are kenneled dogs – and all are infested with parasites. Most are malnourished, some to the point of muscle atrophy,” Mitchell said. The puppies range in age from 8 weeks to 7 months and include three mothers with new litters.

Mitchell said that Mark Hanks, a Veazie veterinarian, volunteered his services over the weekend to give each animal a physical examination. Three employees of a Bangor pet store also helped to clean each dog.

Roxanne Brann, director of the Kennebec Valley Humane Society, said Monday that her staff was assessing the conditions of each of the 42 dogs at her facility. “They are all thin and dirty, with heavily matted fur,” Brann said.

Worley said her staff is reeling from its fourth major animal seizure in three months.

“We are exhausted to the breaking point,” she said. “We keep wondering how many more of these hellholes are out there that we haven’t seen.”

Worley said the program, which does not receive any money from the state’s General Fund, but is funded through dog license fees, is paying $400 a day to care for the animals. “That’s why we will be trying to push a possession hearing in the courts through as fast as possible,” she said. Such a hearing would allow the state to take possession of the dogs in an action separate from any future criminal case.

It will be at least two to three weeks before any of the dogs will be available for adoption, said Mitchell.

Black said, “I’m just glad that today they are all warm and clean and dry and fed.”