DeLAND, Fla. – A DeLand man arrested Thursday is accused of animal cruelty after several malnourished dogs and a dead puppy were found at his filth-ridden home, according to police.
An officer responded to the home along Pursley Drive the morning of June 16 to perform a well-being check that a neighbor requested hours earlier on behalf of the resident, 55-year-old Kevin Proulx. That neighbor called around 3 a.m. to report barking, saying it wasn’t normal for Proulx’s dogs to be outside and that she assumed the animals had been rehomed because she hadn’t seen them in a few weeks.
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No one answered the door when an officer knocked, yet a dog was heard barking inside, according to an affidavit. This prompted the officer to try the side of the residence, where they reported seeing a dead puppy lying beneath a dripping air conditioner pipe “as if it was attempting to catch the water,” the document shows.
The officer then entered the neighbor’s backyard, reporting five more dogs seen between the inside and outside of the home that were alive yet appeared very skinny and in search of food and water. A broken backdoor screen and multiple breaks in the fence were indicative of escape attempts by the dogs, the officer stated, adding it appeared that two of the dogs outside were trying to break through the back door to reach a dog inside of the home.
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Proulx finally showed up after several more attempts to get him to answer the front door, police said. He reportedly stumbled out of the garage with feces on his feet and said he was having a heart attack, requesting he be taken to a hospital.
As Proulx was hospitalized, the five living dogs were taken to the DeLand Police Department’s kennel until a vet could receive them, with the dead puppy sent to DeLand Animal Hospital.
The reporting officer said they needed to borrow an oxygen tank from DeLand firefighters due to the overbearing smell inside the home, performing a walkthrough to observe “weeks to months of urine and feces from the dogs,” holes in the walls, empty liquor bottles and trash all over, but no trace of food or water for the animals.
In the afternoon, the officer made it to the hospital to speak with Proulx, who advised he could not complete a written statement but agreed to something verbal that the officer could take down. Proulx no longer wanted to speak to law enforcement when given his Miranda warning, saying nothing of note beforehand other than that four of the six dogs did not have names, the affidavit states.
The group of five dogs was comprised of three hound-mix puppies that appeared to be around 9 months old, a 3-to-4 year old Weimaraner named Ghost and a 2-to-3 year old German shorthair pointer named Kiara, the latter described as “very skinny and scared.”
A veterinary doctor who performed checkups on the five living dogs reported they were all underweight — with prominent ribs, spinal and hip bones — and were subjected to a “survival of the fittest” situation in the DeLand home. The doctor determined that the puppy died due to not being able to secure food or water among the rest of the dogs that themselves all exhibited a lack of nourishment for an extended period of time, indicative of starvation for two to three weeks or longer.
Proulx faces six counts of felony cruelty to animals. He was arrested via warrant Thursday morning at his home and was released that afternoon after posting $6,000 bond, $1,000 for each count, records show.
The dogs were cared for by DeLand Animal Control until being received by the Florida Pointer Rescue, the department said.
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