Officials: Animals rescued in Yaphank doing better

The dozens of dogs, cats, birds, goats and horses that were taken from what officials said was a wretched life of neglect in a Yaphank home Wednesday are doing better - and even the critically ill ones may survive to be adopted into loving homes.

But officials said Friday they have not yet decided whether the woman who they say had kept the animals will face criminal charges.

"I can only say the dogs are doing much better," said Chief Roy Gross of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "They are getting better as we speak."

Gross had given a bleaker outlook earlier in the week when Deborah Miller's Park Street home in Yaphank was raided, and more than 50 dogs and a barnyard's worth of other animals, including cats, birds, goats and horses, were found in deplorable condition.

Miller, a rescuer herself, runs Herding Dog Rescue. Most of the canines were Collies or Collie mixes, said Michelle Curtin, director of Second Chance Wildlife Rescue in Farmingville, where the animals were taken after the raid.

Curtin said that, since the raid, at least three other outfits have taken some of the animals rescued from Miller's operation.

They include Heart and Soul of Long Island in Commack and Save-A-Pet in Port Jefferson. The third rescue outfit is the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, a Manhattan-based organization that cared for about a dozen of the dogs found at Herding Dog Rescue.

That Mayor's Alliance group's website carries a flattering profile of Miller from 2006, saying she started her operation after rescuing a German Shepherd at the Town of Hempstead animal shelter, and training him for obedience fly ball. The dog, which was in awful shape with many ailments, according to the profile, prospered under Miller's care and lived with her for another 13 years.

Curtin said the animals that remain with her organization, overall, are looking healthier and getting stronger.

"A couple of them were in really, really bad shape," Curtin said. "But they've been under 24-hour care and some of those have turned around."

She said it was still too early to tell whether the ones who were in the worst shape - animals she first feared would have to be put down - are well enough to survive.

It is also too early to say whether Miller would face criminal charges, Gross said.

Neither Miller nor her attorney, Patrick Young of Central Islip, could be reached for comment.