DANIELSVILLE, GA -- Sixteen feral, wild dogs were euthanized at a Madison County animal shelter Tuesday. The dogs were rounded up from a rural dirt road near Lexington in Oglethorpe County. That's where a pack of dogs attacked a couple and killed them looking for food.
Susan Fornash, the Director of the Madison Oglethorpe Animal Shelter said she received a court order Tuesday afternoon to euthanize 11-adult dogs and 5-puppies.
Fornash told 11-Alive News all of the dogs were malnourished and had a range of other problems. "They had fly bites on their ears, bite marks in various places, some healed, some not," she said. "The puppies were in very, very bad condition."
Fornash said all of the dogs were malnourished and very aggressive toward humans. "I don't believe that these dogs had ever been touched," she said.
While some people described the dogs as docile, Fornash says they were feral or wild and hungry. "Dogs are not meant to just survive on their own," she said. "They're going to kill something when they get hungry."
Madison County's Animal Control helped Oglethorpe County Sheriff deputies round up the dogs Monday and Tuesday. They used food as bait and trapped some of the dogs in cages. They had to tranquilize others.
Lothar and Sherry Schweder were found alongside the dirt road on either side of their car Saturday morning. The State Medical Examiner ruled the couple bled to death from animal bites. Dr. Kris Sperry said the dogs probably attacked the couple because they were hungry.
Dr. Sperry said it appears Sherry Schweder was attacked while out for a walk Friday night. He theorizes that her husband went looking for her and found the dogs attacking her. When he tried to get the dogs away Dr. Sperry believes the dogs attacked him.
Oglethorpe County Investigators and the GBI say the dogs were often seen hanging around an abandoned home at the end of the dirt road off of Highway 77.
The owner of the abandoned house told investigators he owns some of the dogs and fed them every now and then. Susan Fornash said the dogs hadn't been fed in quite a while. "I mean when you can count their ribs and their sides are caved in, those are hungry dogs," she said.
Jim Fullington, the Special Agent in Charge of the GBI's Athens office said they are leaving open the possibility of criminal charges in the case. It's uncertain what those charges could be because there are not animal control laws in Oglethorpe County.
