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HILLSDALE, Kan. — The Miami County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a case of animal cruelty after finding two dogs trapped in a storage facility.

Barking dogs inside a storage locker at Hillsdale Boat and Mini-Storage wasn’t something one woman had ever heard in her two years of renting there.

She asked FOX4 not to use her name but tells a story that came close to being tragic.

“My children and I walked up and down the rows until we found it, and I whistled and sure enough I heard a dog,” she said.

The woman called a friend who works at a pet rescue and the police. When they opened up the locker, they found a sad sight: two dogs in kennels.

“They couldn’t stand. They were lay down kennels,” the woman said. “The bigger dog had a piece of paper it was eating until it could not reach it no more.”

Police said the dogs were there for about a month. After tracking down the owner, they said this wasn’t a mistake. The dogs were purposefully left in the storage locker until Saturday when the woman saved them.

“We already had a rope around the bigger dog, and he seemed to be OK. He was eating and drinking water,” the woman said.

The second smaller dog was emaciated and in very bad shape.

“One of her eyes was matted, bubbled shut. She had open sores on her arm or her paw,” the woman said. “She tried to hold her head up, and it would just fall back down.”

Police have passed their file along the the prosecutors office. Charges are pending.

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