Whatever
Happened To...
Dogs rescued from Maui house
doing fine at Utah animal shelterQuestion: What ever happened to the four dogs taken from a Maui house along with more than 90 animals in January? How are they doing at the animal shelter in Utah?
Answer: The four mixed-breed dogs -- Boomer, Girlie, Baby and Hank have been at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, since May and are awaiting adoption.
"They're all really well," said Amy Wagner, the sanctuary's adoption coordinator.
"We're still working with them, trying to get them better socialized."
Of the four, Hank seems the most sociable and follows one of the workers wherever he goes in the shelter, Wagner said.
The Maui Humane Society was able to find a home for a cat and two dogs taken from the Haiku house, before turning to the sanctuary for assistance with the four other dogs.
The remaining 75 dogs and 13 cats, a number in poor health, were destroyed, society animal control supervisor Aimee Anderson said.
One of the dogs removed from the home was dead and had been apparently killed by other dogs, Anderson said.
Anderson said the sanctuary in Utah is the largest animal shelter in the United States, and the dogs will be able to live out their natural lives there if they're not adopted.
"It's like the Utopia of animal sanctuaries," she said. "We were lucky to get them to accept them because they get requests from all over the world."
Meanwhile, Haiku homeowner Marlyn "Jean" Bermudez and her husband, Timothy, are awaiting trial on 85 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty.
In an earlier interview, Bermudez said she could not afford to spay her animals, and they began to breed.
If convicted the Bermudezes face a $2,000 fine and one year in jail for each misdemeanor.
This update was written by Gary Kubota.
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