Dogs found malnourished and dead at Buna home

Jasper County Sheriff Mitchell Newman and other law enforcement officers who've seen just about everything in their careers say what they found on property in Buna was difficult to take.

Jasper County law enforcement officers say what began as a drug investigation ended with the discovery of four malnourished dogs and the skeletons of several other dogs with the chains around them.

If you watch the video here on our website, it is very graphic.

The Jasper County Sheriff's Office arrested a 55-year-old Buna man and his girlfriend after she delivered crystal meth to an undercover officer early Tuesday morning on County Rd 809 in Buna.

KFDM's Ashley Gaston was at the scene when the sheriff and investigators searched the property for the second time on Tuesday.

The last thing deputies expected to find when they were searching the home for drugs were results of animal cruelty.

Deputies arrested a man and woman, and then took a closer look at what was on the property.

They found four dogs alive and chained at the home in Buna. 

Investigators say there was no sign of food or water near the dogs and that you can see the ribcages on the dogs.

All of them appeared to be malnourished.

Sheriff Mitchell Newman says it's hard to know when the dogs were last fed.

When the deputies walked to the back yard, they found four other dogs. They were all dead.  Each still chained with the collar around the neck of the skeleton.

"Well, this is about the cruelest thing you can do," Sheriff Newman told KFDM News.  "I mean, these dogs were chained, didn't have a chance to live.  They were chained and starved and the carcasses were there with the collar still on them.  I don't know of anything worse that a human could do to an animal."   

Jasper County inmates gathered the surviving dogs and put them in a kennel.  They were transported to the Houston SPCA.

The man faces drug and animal cruelty charges.  The woman faces drug charges.