Squalid conditions discovered

Authorities were horrified by conditions at the home of the former president of a controversial animal shelter, Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo said Thursday.

Animal feces were ankle-deep inside the trailer home and two cat skeletons were found on the property of Sheri Allen, former head of For the Love of Cats and Kittens, or FLOCK, DeMeo said.

Allen was arrested Wednesday after authorities said they found about 125 sick and emaciated cats at her home in Pahrump. Some cats had open sores, others were obviously starving, and many had filthy, matted hair, DeMeo said. "It was horrible. I thought FLOCK was bad. This was equal or worse," DeMeo said.

About two weeks ago, Nye County animal control officers found 400 sick and starving cats roaming the FLOCK facility in Pahrump.

On Wednesday afternoon, officers went to Allen's 2.5-acre property in the 4600 block of Daag Circle in Pahrump to talk to her about the situation at the FLOCK site. Officers were overcome by the smell of urine and feces when they entered an office on Allen's property, according to a police statement.

Animal feces were on table tops, blankets, shelves, desks and splattered on walls, police said.

Similar conditions were found in her trailer nearby, police said.

Police also found two cat skeletons and the remains of a cat tail on the property near where several pigs were kept.

Allen was booked into the Nye County Detention Center on 125 counts of cruelty to animals. She posted a $79,000 bond Thursday and was released.

DeMeo said he had never seen as bad a case of animal cruelty in his 33 years as a police officer.

Allen said many of the animals were disabled when she took them in. She said she had so many animals -- there were also a few dogs, hedgehogs and a ferret -- because she found it hard to turn any away knowing they would be euthanized.

"We have no other options," she said Thursday evening from the property.

Allen also denied that her home and office were covered in feces, saying that the "whole place wasn't (expletive) from wall to wall."

Allen said the property was dirtier than usual, but that was because the 12 people on her staff hadn't had a chance to do normal morning clean-up duties. They had been busy trying to fix some leaks in a roof after the preceding night's rainstorm, she said.

She said police played up the worst areas of the house and didn't take note of more sanitary areas.

"They would take a picture of a blanket with a little turd on it. But the blanket that was clean? They wouldn't photograph that," she said.

Allen said there were a few sick cats and kittens at the property. But, she added, that's inevitable with that many cats living on the property.

She denied that any of the cats were seriously ill. Only a few had respiratory problems, she said.

There were cat skeletons on the property, but it was only because they were hidden in a "cat condo" structure, she said. Staff would have removed the remains if they had known they were there, she said.

DeMeo said Allen may face additional charges in connection with 400 sick cats found at the FLOCK site two weeks ago.

Allen said she shouldn't be held responsible for the conditions at the shelter because she left FLOCK on May 30, almost two months before authorities discovered and denounced the situation at the shelter.

DeMeo said, however, that the condition of some of the animals showed that they may have been neglected for months.

The 400 cats at the FLOCK shelter are now in the care of Best Friends Animal Society, a Utah-based group. The animals taken from Allen's home were placed in a local shelter, DeMeo said.