A pet groomer charged in 2001 with animal cruelty for keeping 264 animals at a Chico-area house was…read morecharged again Friday after authorities found 36 pets living in squalor at the same house during a September inspection.
The misdemeanor second-degree animal cruelty charges in Kitsap County District Court against Cherilyn M. Wilson, 68, follow felony animal cruelty charges filed in Lewis County Superior Court against Cherilyn Wilson and her husband, Roy I. Wilson.
Cherilyn Wilson's grooming business, Happy Tails Pet Grooming, on Silver Pine Drive in Bremerton, was not properly licensed, according to court documents. When arrested in 2001, Cherilyn Wilson ran Happy Tails out of the Chico-area house, which is where the 264 animals were seized at that time.
Lewis County authorities inspected the couple's Winlock residence three days after Kitsap Animal Control went to the Chico-area house in September. At the Winlock home, authorities found a female pony on the ground in "very poor condition" with a painful hoof condition called laminitis. The progression of the disease indicated that the pony had been suffering "for at least several years," according to a veterinarian who examined the pony.
A deputy at the Winlock residence described the hoofs as appearing like a large root from a plant.
"They were not recognizable as hoofs if seen by the untrained eye," according to charging documents, though the veterinarian reported that the limping and settling on the ground by the pony would have been enough for an "average person" to realize the pony needed attention. The pony was euthanized.
Lewis County authorities alleged five dogs were found caged in a barn on the property with feces piled up and covering the ground. Although the water bowls were filled, they had been contaminated by food and dirt and inside one they found a dead rodent. The pair face five counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals charges for the dogs. The charges in Lewis County were filed Nov. 20.
Though the five dogs and the pony account for the criminal charges, a Lewis County Animal Control officer said in addition to the pony there were a total of 28 dogs, five rabbits and goats on the property, according to Kitsap Animal Control reports.
Reached by phone, Cherilyn Wilson said she was unaware of the new charges in Kitsap County and declined to comment.
On Sept. 11, Kitsap Animal Control officers went into the Chico-area residence and found 26 dogs, four cats, five rabbits and a guinea pig. One officer wrote feces had risen two to six inches high in places and the county Department of Community Development condemned the buildings on the property as unfit for animals and humans.
"The smell was so strong it burned my eyes and a respirator didn't make a difference," the officer wrote in court documents.
Cherilyn Wilson agreed to surrender the animals and said she had been traveling from Lewis County to care for them but the task had overwhelmed her.
"Wilson said she knew it was wrong how the animals were kept but that she loved them," according to court documents. She could give the names of two to three of the dogs, according to reports.
Most of the animals at the Chico house were kept in kennels or pens, except for some cats. Cherilyn WIlson told officers the cats helped keep down the rats, but officers noted in reports they could see rats darting along the floor and hear them fighting under the debris. None of the animals required euthanasia, though many required veterinary care.
The 2001 seizure at the Chico-area house overwhelmed the Kitsap Humane Society, which suddenly had to house and care for dozens of dogs, rabbits, pygmy goats, guinea pigs, two horses and an "unknown number of chickens," according to a Kitsap Sun report.
Cherilyn Wilson's lawyer during the 2001 case told the newspaper she admitted to having too many animals on the property, but she and her husband had been adequately caring for them until she fell ill.
