WESTERLO — Dog-breeder Tanja Morse, 71, of Westerlo, faces 41 charges related to animal cruelty after authorities seized 22 dogs, 15 horses, one cow, and a variety of birds from her home.

 All the animals were malnourished and living in “deplorable conditions,” according to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple in a social media post, which went on to describe the property as covered in urine, feces, and vegetal overgrowth. 

The animals are now being held by the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society, which is working to re-house them. The organization told The Enterprise it could not provide any more information because the investigation is ongoing. 

Apple said Morse was released on an appearance ticket, due before the Westerlo Town Court again on July 9. 

The Enterprise has written about Morse before, in 2017, when she was charged with three counts of failure to provide sustenance, after turning over 16 of her 56 dogs, according to a police report. Sixteen horses, a llama, 27 chickens, and 27 goats were also found on the property, the report says. Morse claimed at the time these figures were wrong. 

Those 2017 charges against Morse were ultimately adjourned in contemplation of dismissal with the condition that, for five years, she no longer house goats or llamas, get any new horses, or breed chickens for profit, The Enterprise reported. She was allowed to continue breeding dogs. 

Morse told The Enterprise at the time of her 2017 arrest that she “thought everybody was fine,” referring to her animals, and that authorities showed up at her house after a neighbor with whom she had been feuding called them about an aging mare that had wandered off Morse’s property. 

She said that caring for and breeding her animals was a “labor of love” that did not earn her much money, and that she held another part-time job to sustain herself. 

As part of that reporting, The Enterprise also spoke with psychologist Dr. Randall Lockwood, of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, about the phenomenon of hoarding, a psychological condition related to anxiety that’s most commonly seen in middle-aged women.

Hoarding, including animal hoarding, is recognized as a mental illness in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

A case of hoarding is not simply resolved by taking animals away, Lockwood said.

He explained that hoarders who keep animals typically believe they’re the only ones that can take care of them, causing resistance against anyone who tries to take them away, and that even severe health issues like tumors will often be explained away as sudden or short-term problems. 

Apple said that Morse also had 30 dogs seized in 2023, and that she voluntarily surrendered them.

Morse could not immediately be reached by The Enterprise this week.