Neglected and suffering dogs found inside a filthy Brooklyn hoarder home – along with the corpse of their tragic, elderly owner – were on the road to recovery Saturday, as even more pooches were discovered in the squalid property, animal rescuers told The Post.
A total of 115 pooches – five of them dead, and most terrier mixes – have been recovered so far from the Mill Basin home, where authorities also found 73-year-old Eileen Horn dead among heaping piles of trash Friday.
“They’ve been really nervous, but I think they’re so happy to be out of the smell and be shaved – a lot of them had matted fur, which is really painful because it pulls on the hair of their skin,” said Katy Hansen, the communications director for Animal Care Centers of NYC.
Hansen said it was likely the dogs were inbreeding with one another.
Neighbors at the 66th Street and National Drive home described it as a house of horrors, where Horn, along with her elderly sister, lived without electricity.
It’s unclear how long the duo lived in the single-family home, which is worth over $1.3 million today, according to real estate estimates.
The woman’s sister was reportedly alive and inside the home and treated by medical personnel when authorities arrived around 7 a.m. Neither she nor family could be reached.
Several pooches had to be put under anesthesia in order to shave them “because it was too painful otherwise,” noted Karen Lecain, who works for the Compassionate Animal Rescue Efforts (CARE) of Dutchess County.
Lecain and her fellow CARE rescuers worked until midnight Friday shaving and cleaning up the 40 dogs they received from the Brooklyn home – one of whom gave birth to a dead puppy in the process, Lecain said.
“I think it was the stress,” she explained. “Some of them were born in that house and never saw the light of day, so it will take time for them to trust again.”
Jennifer Brooks, the president of NYC Second Chance Rescue, has six of the pooches at the rescue’s Long Island City shelter – where she had to “give them three or four shampoos until the water wasn’t yellow anymore,” she said.
“The smell is really bad – rancid – and they’re covered in debris and filth and poop…Mercedes had poop stuck all over her – it took me 45 minutes to cut it all out of her fur,” said Brooks, explaining that Mercedes is the name she’s given a 5-year-old, 13-pound female terrier mix.
A 4-year-old, 15-pound Shih Tzu-Japanese Chin mix named Barbie has gone from yellow to “basically cream” in color in the last 24 hours, said Brooks.
Barbie’s “outgoing and super sweet” behavior, as well as that of the other dogs, is surprising, Brooks explained.
“Even though some of them are very scared, none of them have been aggressive with me at all – they’ve been very cooperative, which is unusual because you would think they would be scared to the point of maybe snapping, but they haven’t.
“They will be able to come around with some love, care and TLC,” Brooks said.
People interested in fostering dogs can fill out an application at nycscr.org.
The cause of Horn’s death has not been determined. Police have not arrested anyone in connection to the incident.
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