Two women face animal cruelty charges more than a year after the Orange County Sheriff’s Office went to an Ocoee property and found 33 dogs housed in kennels filled with urine and feces without access to food or clean water, according to court records.
In addition to two counts of animal cruelty, Heather Drass, 45, and Kyla Rivard, 27, are charged with improperly confining the animals. Five dogs, including a brindle Chihuahua mix found dead in a shower stall, were infected with parvovirus when deputies found them.
A pitbull mix infected with the same virus — a highly contagious illness spread by contact with feces that has a high mortality rate if left untreated — has since been euthanized, according to a report documenting months of investigation as deputies attempted to contact the women after the dogs were confiscated in July 2023.
Drass, the report said, told deputies she was in the hospital when they discovered the animals, leaving them in Rivard’s care. She further said they had plenty of food and water, contrary to what deputies described when they arrived at the property on East Silver Star Road. Though the dogs living in kennels outside an RV were described as “bright, alert and healthy” with clean water set out for them, 18 were found inside the trailer in “filthy conditions” with the smell of excrement wafting even from outside.
“The dogs were housed in wire cages stacked two and three high allowing urine and feces to fall into the bottom row of cages,” the report said. The smell “was overwhelming and the amount of trash and debris on the floor made it difficult to navigate throughout the RV trailer.”
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Photos in the report offered a glimpse of what deputies found: trash littering the floors, a kennel covered in dirty advertising pages and an emaciated dog looking up at a photographer as it stood among what appeared to be its own feces.
Authorities were alerted to the property by an anonymous caller who reported that Drass and Rivard had not been seen for three days, according to the report, and animal service officers said no one answered the door on the several occasions when they knocked on the RV trailer. Phone numbers called for Drass and Rivard were either out of service or had full voicemail boxes, they added, and a notice left on the RV door was still there the day deputies arrived to confiscate the dogs.
The property, investigators noted, is owned by Rivard’s grandmother, who told deputies Rivard believed Drass or someone else was tasked to care for the animals. Some of the dogs were placed in the care of Rivard’s mother, who said she didn’t want the surviving dogs infected with parvovirus put down but later struggled with veterinary care due to cost of treatment, the report said. The remaining dogs were placed in foster homes.
Court records show Drass was arrested Nov. 11 while Rivard was jailed Wednesday. Both have since been released from the Orange County Jail on bond.