07-02-2025
60-plus dogs rescued from Dillion County hoarding situation; group asks for stricter laws
DILLION COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Dozens of dogs were rescued from a hoarding situation Tuesday afternoon in Dillion County.
A spokesman for Marion County Friends and Volunteers said this isn't the first hoarding case the group has seen, but it is certainly the largest.
The Marion-based nonprofit organization got a call that the owner of the dogs had passed away and that the family was unable to care for them. With 60 small dogs in desperate need of help, the group called All4Paws Animal Rescue, based in Pawleys Island, to assist.
'I said we'll probably be able to take 25 or 30,' said Allison Gillespie, director of All4Paws. 'And at 8:15 p.m., 60 dogs rolled up in a van, and she said, 'What can you take?' And so we ended up just kept taking and taking.'
Most of the dogs were healthy, but others were pregnant, nursing, and even blind. There was one dog with no back feet and another with a broken jaw. The organization said there wasn't enough food and water for all of the animals and that they were living outside.
Gillespie said they have already seen an outpouring of volunteers and foster families come forward to help.
'Coming from an animal-hoarding house, they just weren't very socialized,' she said. 'They didn't always have hands on them, probably.'
Matthew McDonald, chief operations officer and vice president of the Marion group, they have rescued more than 90 dogs in the last six weeks.
He explained that hoarding cases seem to be growing at an alarming rate. He said some municipalities either don't have, or don't enforce, the number of dogs people are allowed to own.
'We oftentimes see them getting swept under the rug and not being upheld,' he said. 'So that just continues to breed a mindset of, 'It's just an animal. What are they going to do to me?''
McDonald said their usual rescues are five to 12 dogs, not 60-plus. He said he hopes lawmakers wake up and prioritize the health of animals.
'If the state, or even the local municipalities, were a little more involved, it wouldn't rely as heavily on private entities such as Marion County Friends and Volunteers and other rescues that work to try and, you know, correct wrongs others have done,' he said.
Most of the dogs went to All4Paws, but others went to a rescue in Columbia. All4Paws said the healthy dogs will be available for adoption or fostering starting on Tuesday.
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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Keep up with Adrianna on Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more of her work, here.
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