They tell us the conditions were deplorable.

People in a Cynthiana neighborhood say they watched in shock as Animal Control took a malnourished dog out of a home. Neighbors say the dog had been abandoned at the home on Penn Street days earlier.

"Very underweight. Very emaciated," described neighbor Jordan Smarr, "it's sad. It really is sad."

Smarr told us he watched as Animal Control rescued the collie mix from the abandoned house. Its renters - he said - had only lived there a few months before moving out for good last week.

"Nobody really knew them. They just was in and out."

"I had been down here before to a yard sale, and I'd seen no dogs," said Elthea Herrington.

Herrington's brother-in-law owns the home. She says he found the dog locked in the basement.

"The back door, the whole bottom of it's gone like the dog had tried to chew to get out. It was really bad."

Herrington said feces covered the basement floor.

"We had to take shovels, like farmers use, and you would have to scrap one layer up and then hit the floor and scrape another layer up. The fleas were really bad. They'd jump on you, you'd have to come outside, rub them off. They wouldn't jump off. Shake them off of you, go back in and clean some more."

Animal control officers tell us they did get the dog out of the house. They are working with police to investigate.

"I don't see how a dog could live in them. I really don't. Because I've got dogs of my own," noted Herrington.

So far, police haven't filed any animal cruelty charges.