ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 11, 1997 TAG: 9701130036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
Valery Green, the animal breeder who faces animal care charges in Franklin County, said she will fight to keep authorities from taking her dogs and cats.
"They're my babies," Green said Friday. "I don't want them taken away from me."
Green, a patient at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where she is undergoing cancer treatment, said she plans to tell her side of the story in court. The case is scheduled for Wednesday.
Franklin County Circuit Judge B.A. Davis III signed a court order last week giving animal control officers and Humane Society officials the authority to search Green's Six Mile Post rental property and to secure her animals.
Green did not show up for her first scheduled court hearing in Franklin County last month.
Neighbors have lodged numerous complaints against Green; a state animal investigator, Tammy Javier, has been working the case for several weeks. Since stories have appeared in newspapers and on television about Green's troubles, The Roanoke Times has received numerous calls from others in the region complaining about her.
Javier and Donna Essig, the president of the county's Humane Society board, believe Green is not capable of keeping the 119 animals she now owns. When they searched the property, many purebred dogs were without food and water. Plastic animal carriers were filled inches deep with feces, which were also all over the inside of Green's home, they said.
Green, who has a history of animal care problems in other localities, said she has always loved her cats and dogs and hasn't neglected them in any way. She said she names them all. "When one of them is barking, I know which one it is before I look out the window," she said.
She raises numerous breeds of dogs, including cocker spaniels, rottweilers and Pomeranians.
Her favorite is a German Shepherd dog named Thor.
Green said she has been sick with cancer and a bout with pneumonia, and had checked herself into Franklin Memorial Hospital on Christmas Eve.
The problems at her Franklin County home, where she keeps 73purebred dogs and 46cats, started when she had an extended stay in the hospital and tried to get friends to take care of the animals, she said.
After searching the property Jan. 3, animal control officers took 23 puppies to Rocky Mount veterinarian Lynda Leffler for emergency care.
Green said there was nothing wrong with the dogs.
Leffler said Friday that some of the dogs "appeared to be on the thin side," but that all of them are doing well.
She said there had been particular concern for four Pomeranian puppies that had dark stools, which can be a sign of fatal disease, but the Pomeranians are doing fine.
"I think the primary issue here is the care of the animals" on Green's property, Leffler said. "And I've never been to her place."
Green didn't have much to say about problems she's had elsewhere, including a conviction for assaulting a police officer in Martinsville and animal care violations in Radford. She also has charges pending for threat of arson and obtaining a dog with intent to defraud in Montgomery County.
She did say that several newspaper stories about her were inaccurate.
She mentioned a story told by one of her former landlords, Kenny Kaye of Floyd County. Kaye said it took four truckloads to haul off the animal feces he found inside a trailer that he rented to Green.
A police officer called to investigate the matter vomited when he entered it, Kaye said.
Green said she did not keep dogs inside the trailer, and that the only feces were in cat litter boxes.
Green, 39, also said that some of the current charges against her were prompted by a Roanoke man who is trying to frame her.
"My animals give me a reason to get up each and every morning," she said. "I vehemently resent these people trying to come in and take control of my animals. They came in with their guns loaded and the triggers cocked."
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB