Breeder: Schlabach, Reuben
Business name: Sharp Run Kennels
City, State Zip: Millersburg, OH 44654
Year: 2005
USDA License: 31-A-0122
Date of CAPS Investigation: 2005-03-02
Approximately 110 dogs and 30 puppies. Breeds: Cairn Terriers, West Highland Terriers, Dachshunds, Poodles, Bichons, Pugs, Boston Terriers, and English Bulldogs
This kennel was housed in a cinderblock building, about 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. It had a peaked metal roof and concrete flooring. There were windows about two feet wide and three feet high that were spaced about every ten feet along the 100 foot walls. The kennel was accessible from the outside by a doorway that led directly to the kennel room. The owner indicated his facility was designed for raising hogs, and he had converted it to a dog kennel.
Inside there were two rows of seven dog pens that were positioned about five feet from the wall and about 10 feet apart. Each pen was about ten feet long and five feet wide. They had four-foot-high chain link walls and rubber mats for floorings. The cages in one row each housed an adult English Bulldog. Cages in the second row contained adult English Bulldogs and adult Boston Terriers.
A section of each pen was raised about 1.5 feet off the floor on wooden platforms. Wooden boards around these sections made it impossible to determine the amount of fecal accumulation inside the pens. All of the pens contained a water spigots secured to the chain link wall and fed from the ceiling through metal piping. Plastic food dishes were on the floor in a manner that did not minimize contamination by excreta (3.9(b)-Feeding).
Other pens were arranged across the width of the building in two additional rows. There were about 20 pens in each row. Each pen was about ten feet long and three feet wide and had three-foot-high plastic walls, no roofs, and treated thick-gauge wire for floorings. There were one to three adult dogs of various breeds in each cage, including Pugs, Poodles, Bichons, West Highland Terriers, Dachshunds, Cairn Terriers, and Boston Terriers.
Several pens contained puppies of various ages, most less than two months old, and various breeds. In some of the puppy pens, there was carpet on the flooring. In some pens, up to five puppies were confined to a three-foot-square area covered with plastic sheeting and boarded off by one-foot-high wooden boards. These puppies weighed up to four pounds (3.6(c)(1)(i)-Primary enclosures).
Each cage was elevated a few inches above the floor. Recesses in the concrete under the cages were filled with stagnant water, feces, and urine. All of the pens had large patches – several days’ accumulation – of feces and fur stamped into the wire (3.11(a)-Cleaning of primary enclosures).
Water spigots ran into each pen from PVC piping, and plastic food dishes were positioned on the flooring of each pen in a manner that did not minimize contamination by excreta (3.9(b)-Feeding).
All of the plastic boards and plastic walls in all of the pens had fecal stains on them (3.1(c)(3)- Surfaces).
Light fixtures were periodically placed about two feet above the pens. There were metal tubes containing wiring running from light to light and to the ceiling. The surfaces of the tubes, lights, and wooden trusses of the roof were covered in cobwebs and dust (3.1(c)(2)-Surfaces).
