MUSKEGON, Mich. (WOOD) — Dogs rescued from a filthy home in Norton Shores in January are starting to be adopted out.

Police say they seized 78 dogs from the home of Lisa Cober, who is facing a felony charge of animal cruelty. Cober only recently released her rights to the dogs. They couldn’t be adopted out until that happened.

“We’ve had a lot of families reach out to us at the beginning of this case. We were not able to make any promises to anyone not knowing how this would end,” Alexis Robertson of Big Lake Humane Society said. “There’s a lot of anticipation to get these dogs into their homes.”

Big Lake Humane Society, Pound Buddies, Harbor Humane and other regional shelters came to the rescue when the dogs were taken from Cober’s home Jan. 30.

“Originally, we took 18 of the 78. We unfortunately lost three of those to distemper so we had 15 that became available for adoption this week,” Robertson said.

“Distemper is easily preventable with a vaccine and it is a virus that attacks their neurological system,” she explained. “They start seizing. They lose their ability to walk very quickly and their system just shuts down.”

The shelter spent a little over $20,000 on the care of the 18 dogs, double what they spend to care for a typical dog for an entire year. Much of that was due to medical costs.

Now, all 15 remaining dogs at Big Lake are healthy and ready for forever homes.

“We’re getting pretty sad here holding on to them, seeing puppies for three months in their prime growing up with us here,” Robertson said. “We did the best we could with puppy training and enrichment for them but they need to be in homes, so we’re just so excited that the time has come and we get to see them bloom in their homes.”

For more information on adopting a dog, you can visit the websites for the Big Lake Humane Society, Pound Buddies, the Harbor Humane Society or the Humane Society of West Michigan.