enlarge Staff photo by Doug Jones

Jay Milligan holds Hugh, a 13-year-old dog he adopted after it was rescued from a kennel shut down by the state last year.

The Humane Society of the United States offers information on buying puppies.

These Maine shelters all participate in rescuing animals seized by state officials in animal cruelty and neglect cases:

The Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland

The Animal Welfare Society of Kennebunk

The Greater Androscoggin Humane Society of Lewiston

Harvest Hills Animal Shelter of Fryeburg

When state officials shut down a kennel in Buxton last summer on charges of animal abuse and neglect, Jay Milligan volunteered to work at the temporary shelter where the animals were housed.

Among the dogs cared for in the shelter was an aging male papillon with a mouth full of rotten teeth, a downtrodden personality and no interest in human contact.

In December, Milligan took him home.

“He just didn’t have any spark,” said Milligan, of Windham. “Now there’s sort of a glint in his eye, and he prances, the way you’d expect a young dog to. He’s gained some years just by moving into our house.”

Concerned people like Milligan have adopted most of the 254 dogs the state acquired when it shut down the so-called puppy mill known as J’aime Kennels last summer, shelter officials say. This week, the temporary shelter that housed the animals on Bishop Street in Portland was shut down.

The criminal case against the owner of the kennel, John Frasca, is still unresolved and animal welfare advocates say more puppy mills probably are operating in Maine. But the job of placing the abused and neglected animals has been largely accomplished.

Shelter workers give much of the credit to residents like Milligan, who open their homes to animals that have suffered at the hands of abusive owners.

Milligan and his wife, Sandie, already had two adopted dogs and 14 cats when he started volunteering on weekends at the Bishop Street shelter.

Milligan said the couple doesn’t have children, and the adopted animals are fun to have around. “It’s our way of giving back to the community,” said Milligan, 47, who works in human resources at TD Banknorth. “But more so, it’s about giving these animals sort of some final good years, because most breeding dogs haven’t had very good early lives.”

Milligan’s dog from Buxton likely sired most of the kennel’s papillon puppies, a toy spaniel breed with wispy white hair marked by multi-colored patches and erect, fringed ears. Shelter workers named the dog Hugh, after Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner, to honor his long breeding history.

Milligan kept the name when he took Hugh home and began the socialization process. The dog had spent his life in a cage, so he didn’t know how to climb stairs, he was not housebroken and he was unaccustomed to human contact.

Slowly Hugh began to build a relationship with Milligan and his wife. He acclimated to the house full of other animals, learned that it was all right to lie on the couch and developed a fondness for roast beef, which he gums softly, because a veterinarian has extracted his decayed teeth.

Hugh will never be housebroken because of his age, but Milligan and his wife minimize problems by walking him regularly and keeping an eye on where the dog goes in the house.

“We just do a lot of cleaning,” Milligan said. “We wash the floor every day and watch where he goes.” Andrew Ferreira, director of the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland, credited folks like the Milligans with helping to rescue animals seized from the puppy mill.

“It was very, very giving on the part of he and his wife,” Ferreira said. He couldn’t give exact figures but said a majority of the seized dogs have been adopted, while others are awaiting placement by rescue groups for specific breeds or from foster homes that are giving temporary care.

Other shelters that accepted Buxton dogs included the Animal Welfare Society of Kennebunk, the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society in Lewiston and Harvest Hills Animal Shelter in Fryeburg.

The raid on J’aime Kennels was the largest of its kind in the state’s history, and Ferreira said the refuge league had never dealt with a rescue operation of that magnitude.

“There...