After more than two hours wading through a-foot-and-a-half of animal faeces they counted 17 living dogs at the four-bedroom home in Schneider, Indiana.
But to their horror they also discovered up to 15 dog carcases wrapped in plastic in a freezer.
Lake County Sheriff’s Department investigators also found blood stains on the bottom of the freezer suggesting the case could be even more grizzly than they first thought.
‘There’s blood, and we don’t know why,’ said Detective Michelle Weaver. ‘If the animals had died of natural causes, why would there be blood there?’
Owner of the house, Vicki Moon, 62, faces 17 charges of animal neglect and tonight there is a warrant out for her arrest.
Despite this investigators were only alerted to the case after one of Moon’s dogs broke through the garden fence and attacked a neighbour’s dog.
Detective Weaver said the scene that greeted officers was ‘like a horror movie’ and that they all had to wear protective suits and respirators.
‘I don’t think there are words,’ she added while deputies said they could smell the stench more than 500 feet from the home.
The living dogs, most of whom had medical problems, fleas and were emaciated, are recovering at the Lake County Animal Adoption and Control Center.
An officer at the centre said there was ‘no excuse’ for keeping dogs in such appalling conditions and that the situation had been ‘years in the making’.
The dogs will be re-homed as soon as investigators are able to release them.
