Dogs abandoned in Lansford

Imagine getting a text from your neighbor telling you they’ve moved, and that they want you to find a home for three dogs they left behind.

That is what recently happened to Lansford resident Denine Pierce.

A neighbor who had moved in just a few months before texted her that they were leaving the area. They asked if she could surrender their two dogs to a shelter, and keep the third.

“I was shocked,” she said.

Pierce said before this happened, she and her family would sometimes pet the dogs, because they had children who were friends with her nephew. But she never imagined that they would be left in her care.

“The dogs shouldn’t have been left there, no food no water, it’s just wrong,” she said.

Pierce exchanged text messages with the neighbor, concerned about whether the animals were being taken care of. The neighbor told her how to enter the house, and she was able to feed the dogs.

“You could tell they were hungry,” she said.

She fed the dogs while keeping in touch with the family. But after one of them became aggressive, she was scared to re-enter the home. She called Lansford Police, but couldn’t reach them. She also called the Carbon County Animal Shelter.

Eventually, Lansford police and the shelter came, and shelter manager Tom Connors able to get in the home with permission from the landlord. Through the doorway he fed and gave water to a dog that was running loose inside the house. Another dog, locked inside a bathroom, was given food and water. A third dog that was locked in a cage full of dog feces was scared and aggressive and was taken to Carbon County Animal Shelter. The other two were left inside with the understanding that Pierce would take over their care.

“I’ve been in touch with the neighbor. We want to make sure the dogs are fed, and they have food and water and everything,” Connors said.

Since then, Pierce continued to care for the dogs and actually found the two that were left inside a home.

Connors said the former owner told him that she was bred four times for a total of 36 dogs.

On Tuesday, Mini finally had the courage to come out of her kennel. That wasn’t the case before that.

As of Monday, the dog was too scared to come out of her kennel.

“She shakes in the corner and she growls,” he said. “That’s just a matter of time though, then she’ll get her shots.”

Connors said he received a message from a man claiming to be the owner of the dogs, after he heard that the authorities were considering charging him.

The owner of the dogs, James McCollum, says he is mired in legal trouble after he was arrested in Lansford, causing a violation of his probation in New York state. His girlfriend became pregnant around that time, and had to return to New York by bus. He said he had her contact Pierce to watch the dogs, because she expressed an interest in adopting them while the couple was living in Lansford.

“That’s why my girlfriend called the neighbor. She said we’ll spend the money for food and water.

I know it’s an issue to leave the dogs like that. That’s why she called the neighbor.”

McCollum said he has been a dog breeder for 15 years. Now he said he doesn’t want his two dogs back, but his girlfriend would like Mini, who is her dog.

He also claimed that Pierce wants to try to take his home.

“All she had to do was feed and give them water. I don’t care if their feces are all over the house, I would have cleaned that when I got back within a year, because I had one year probation left,” he said.

Pierce said that the two other dogs will go to a home where there is plenty of space, and kids who will play with them.

She said she hasn’t heard from her old neighbor since she told them that the police were involved in the matter.

“It wasn’t right what they did. They really shouldn’t be owners of dogs,” she said.