Ten dead dogs found dumped in North Carolina ditch

During "Operation Spring Cleaning" last weekend, the Robeson County Sheriff's Department recovered 10 dead dogs from a watery ditch.

"The black bags pictured in the water is them but we won't display the dogs themselves," Sheriff Wilkins said in a post that thanked those involved for their help and announced the results of their work.

In addition to the dead dogs, which were "mostly but not all pit-bulls," 1,545 large bags of garbage, 200 tires and several appliances were removed from the roadside.

After the dogs were discovered, the sheriff's department's animal cruelty investigator and a local veterinarian were reportedly called to the scene to begin the investigation.

Officers are still investigating how the dogs ended up in the ditch, but no additional information concerning cause of death or length of time that they had been there has been released.