12 dogs seized in Pinellas as dozens in Wimauma shiver in cold

Dozens of feral dogs - perhaps as many as 50 - that shivered through freezing overnight temperatures without shelter on a five-acre tract in Wimauma remained on the loose this week.

S.P.C.A. investigators said they have been cautioning the owner, James Holland, against overbreeding for at least four years.

Late Wednesday afternoon, authorities in Pinellas raided Holland's St. Petersburg home and seized seven puppies and five dogs, said Megan Trethewey, a spokeswoman for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Tampa Bay.

Some of the dogs, which are Besenji and Bensenji mixes, were malnourished and others were flea- and parasite-infested, Trethewey said. The agency's veterinarian will look at the dogs Thursday, she said.

Holland sat in a lounge chair in his front yard, protesting loudly, as investigators carted off his animals. They say over the past few years, Holland has given them more than 100 animals. Four of them came in last week.

"He's breeding and breeding and breeding and not taking care of these animals. Every time he gives the animals to the S.P.C.A. they're sickly, they're in bad condition. And some of them have died," said Connie Brooks, executive director of S.P.C.A. Tampa Bay.

She said his animals are not socialized because Holland doesn't work with them, which makes it hard to adopt them out. Brooks said at Holland's home, and a home next-door that he also owns, the animals don't have proper shelter.

Holland admits his dogs are not good pets. He says they are "too wild."

As for the overpopulation problem, he says he can't catch the dogs to sterilize them.

"I don't want them to breed. But I feed 'em. I give them all the food they can eat," said Holland.

He disagrees with the notion his dogs are sick and said he plans to fight efforts to have his dogs confiscated. He said he has paperwork for eight dogs and will protest any efforts to take them from him.

Holland's dogs in Wimauma remained free and will continue to roam the tract until Hillsborough County Animal Services investigators complete their investigation, officials said.

In Wimauma, neighbors estimate as many as 50 dogs live out in the open on a field off Chert Rock Trail.

There is an ongoing investigation regarding the Wimauma pack, said Marti Ryan, spokeswoman for the Hillsborough agency. A county animal services investigator was at the address on Monday and saw dogs that appeared to be in good enough shape to weather the cold, she said.

Seizing dogs and making charges stick in court is a process that must be done correctly, she said.

"You just can't walk into a place without probable cause," Ryan said, unless the investigator saw animals in distress, which he did not.

"We investigated the call and our investigator found those dogs to be in good flesh," she said. A notice was left for the owner to contact the agency, but the owner hasn't, she said.

"If the animals were in danger or peril," she said, "we would do something."

Neighbors said the dogs were infrequently fed and their only water was a pond.

For the past two years, Steve Carroll has watched as the number of dogs on the vacant lot next to him in Wimauma bloomed into a full-blown pack. He estimated there were as many as 50 dogs roaming inside the chain-link fence.

Carroll said he doesn't know how the dogs were being fed or how they were being taken care of.

"They have no shelter," said Carroll of his four-legged neighbors, "no visible food, no tags and no vet care. Another neighbor and I have watched them eat feces from dogs and cows.

"These dogs spent the night wherever they could last night," he said Wednesday. "And rougher weather is coming."