Palm Coast Woman Arrested Following Dumping and Rescue of 71 Dogs From R-Section Hoarding Conditions

Carolyn Moore Loveman, a 48-year-old resident of Rymshaw Drive in Palm Coast, was arrested Thursday on 34 misdemeanor counts and one felony count of animal cruelty, capping a two-and-a-half-week scramble by rescuers to recover 71 dogs that had previously been in Loveman’s care. Three dogs died. 

Late the night of May 4, Caroline Johnson Flagler County’s Saving got a call from a veterinary technician at East Coast Animal Hospital who alerted her to some 30 chihuahuas running loose on the side of the road near the Flagler-St. Johns County line at U.S. 1. It looked as if someone had dumped the dogs there. 

Johnson, the founder of SMART–Flagler County’s Saving Missing Animals Response Team–rushed to the scene with crates in her van while putting out a call of volunteers. Thirty joined her to rescue the dogs. It was dangerous for the volunteers and the dogs. Three dogs were struck and killed by cars, but by 2 a.m. most of the dogs had been secured. 

The dogs, Johnson said, were “extremely fearful,” running away from everyone and running into the road. Two of the dogs had already been struck by the time Johnson got there. She guided the volunteers to calm the dogs and find ways to keep them in place. “Every one of them, you could tell, had fleas, dried up feces on them, skin issues that you know looked like possible mange or flea allergy,” Johnson said. “You could just tell they were not coming from a clean, happy environment, that they were probably in a hoarding kind of situation, or nasty conditions.”

Over two weeks Smart rescued 23 dogs altogether from the dumping site, 20 of them alive, 16 of them placed under Smart’s care and four sent to Safe Rescue in St. Augustine. The dogs are primarily chihuahua, beagle, and yorkie mixes . 

“One of them that was dumped initially two weeks ago, I just trapped her Sunday,” Johnson said, “so she had been out there for 13 days with no food, no water, and very badly dehydrated, and very, very skinny with all her ribs and spine showing. She has been in the hospital 24 hours since Sunday when I trapped her,  on fluids and meds and antibiotics and all kind of supportive care.”

Johnson offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction of whoever was responsible for the dumping. She got several responses that led to an address in Palm Coast’s R-Section, where, Johnson’s tipsters told her, many more dogs remained, and that perhaps only a third or a quarter of the batch was dumped on U.S. 1. 

“The description that I received was that they are starving, they’re eating each other’s feces, they’re all sick,” Johnson said. “The house is overrun with feces and urine. The family doesn’t live in that house, they don’t live in there because the dogs have destroyed it, and that these dogs really need to get out, that they’re eating the walls. So, for me, who hears this, as a rescuer, my priority is trying to get the dogs out.” Johnson had been told that the Lovemans had moved into a shack on the property, according to the arrest report. 

The house Johnson had been directed to was at 80 Rymshaw Drive in Palm Coast. She asked for Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies to conduct a welfare check there. Loveman has owned the property with her husband Chris since 2015. Johnson said initially Loveman would not allow deputies inside the house. A Palm Coast Animal Control officer had been similarly denied access in 2024, according to Loveman’s arrest report. 

But working with Palm Coast Animal Control and the Sheriff’s Offices in Flagler and St. Johns, Loveman eventually surrendered 48 dogs, after telling law enforcement officials that she had 28 to surrender. Deputies found an additional three she had not surrendered, bringing the total number of dogs recovered at the property to 51. 

Once deputies removed the dogs, they asked for permission from Loveman to check the house one more time, which she denied until she was told that she would be served a search warrant. She told deputies she’d had the dogs for two years and had never taken them to a vet. She’d started with a small group of dogs. They started breeding. It got out of hand and the dogs took over the house. She told the deputies that the dogs deserve better because she could not take care of all of them. 

The interior of the house were described in the sheriff’s report after deputies entered it with members of the Crime Scene Investigations unit. The description corroborates what Johnson had been told: “Walking into the garage, the odor of urine was emanating from the interior of the residence. Once the interior garage door was opened, the overwhelming odor of urine and feces poured out of the residence. The door jamb where we stood was covered in residue/grime, which appeared to be where animals have come into contact with while having feces/urine on their paws. Once inside, the floors were observed covered in urine and feces leading to the kitchen. 

“There were multiple holes in multiple walls where animals had dug into the wall, wearing the drywall out so much that insulation and studs were visible. On the kitchen counter, an opened can of Vienna Sausages were out and contained multiple roaches in and around it. Roaches were observed crawling all over the center island and the floors of the kitchen. Past the kitchen was what appeared to be an empty dining room, which contained a gate commonly used to keep animals separated from a certain area. 

“There were multiple piles of feces present in such a small area, and it was clear that some of the piles had been there for days on end. Flies were present in the area and after only being in the residence for a few minutes, a break was needed from the burning sensation in my eyes and the urine odor in the air. As we walked outside, there were multiple bags of trash on the back porch that contained dog feces and had flies swarming them. The backyard was overgrown and there was an above-ground pool that had not been maintained, which contained dark brown water. 

“There was a shed on the property that had not been cleared yet, which was included in the Consent to Search Form. I knocked on the door and heard barking coming from what seemed to be a small dog.” It was one of three dogs in the shed, or what appeared to have been a “makeshift apartment,” with air conditioning, a bed and other necessities. 

At that point Loveman rescinded consent to access or photograph the premises, and all searches stopped. Several rooms in the house could not be searched as a result until the search warrant was secured that evening, enabling a fuller recovery and documentation of the conditions of the dogs and their surroundings. Some of the dogs required more intensive medical interventions than others, and 31 “suffered from numerous medical conditions.” None had been spayed or neutered. 

Most of the dogs are currently fostered. 

“No animal should be left to live covered in filth and riddled with disease while their owner does nothing,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “Thanks to our Agricultural/Ranch Unit, FCSO detectives, Palm Coast Animal Control, and assistance with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, these dogs are finally getting the care they should have had all along. If you cannot care for your animals, you should immediately seek assistance. No animal or pet should be treated like this.” 

Johnson’s Smart organization, a nonprofit, has been paying the medical costs–roughly $16,000 so far, Johnson said, with considerable care still needed. “We have 67 dogs that all need vaccines, monthly heartworm prevention and spay neuter, so the bills are going to be astronomical when we’re said and done with this.”

SMART Rescue is accepting contributions here.