The stench made Spokane Police officer Terry Preuninger gag. It was so bad, he thought he was going to find the body of the little girl’s missing mother.

Preuninger and Officer Michele Madsen went to the apartment Wednesday at 29 E. Pine Ridge Court because a 10-year-old girl told school officials at Shiloh Hills Elementary School that she hadn’t seen her mother for more than a day.

The girl told officials that she went home from school Tuesday to find a locked apartment and no sign of her mother, 43-year-old Lori Mork. A neighbor found the girl and took her in for the night after leaving a note for Mork, Preuninger said.

The girl “reported that she had not seen her mother in over 24 hours,” Shiloh Elementary Principal Kelly Shea said. “It would be the first time I’ve dealt with a child with a parent who wasn’t able to be found. We tried to make contact but (Mork) was not home.”

Shea called Child Protective Services. Officials there agreed with Shea’s recommendation to call Spokane Police.

Preuninger and Madsen arrived early Wednesday afternoon and got no response when they knocked on the door of apartment 311. They heard what sounded like scratching and sliding on a linoleum floor, Preuninger said.

“We feared her mother could be injured,” he said.

Preuninger twice tried to kick down the door. He succeeded only in leaving a black-boot mark. “Then we picked up a battering ram,” he said.

When the door flew open, the ghastly fumes hit him in the face.

“The smell was so overpowering. I was convinced we would find a dead body,” Preuninger said. “But there wasn’t.”

The officers found no sign of Mork, who also has a 13-year-old daughter.

Inside, Preuninger and Madsen found paths between boxes, clothes, garbage and animal feces.

A yellow Labrador ran from the apartment. The officers opened a bedroom door and found two starving dogs hiding in a corner. They found another dog locked in the bathroom.

In another bedroom, they found a small cage packed with three cats. Two other cages held a rabbit each. Other small cages each housed a rat, a gerbil and a hamster.

“If the dogs had been lying still, I would have thought they were dead – they were so emaciated,” Preuninger said. “There was a lot of defecation and urination on the floor.”

They called CPS for Mork’s daughters and SpokAnimal for the starving pets.

“Our primary concern was the welfare of the kids,” Preuninger said. “We didn’t know where the older daughter was.”

After locating the 13-year-old girl, she told Preuninger that her mother kicked her out of the apartment last Saturday and has since been staying with a friend, and the friend’s parents, in a nearby apartment building.

The older daughter just recently stopped sleeping in the room with the three dogs. “She said she couldn’t take it,” Preuninger said.

Gail Mackie, executive director of SpokAnimal, arrived at the apartment a short time after the officers. She couldn’t open a bedroom door because of all the clutter, she said.

“It was pretty sad. There was urine and feces all over in there,” Mackie said.

Trails between boxes, clothes and garbage led from the front door to the balcony. The trail split between the bathroom and the bedrooms.

“I couldn’t see the (kitchen) counters. I couldn’t even see the sink,” she said. “But there was a clear shot to the television.”

Mackie weighed the animals once they were taken to the shelter. She said the dogs were about half their normal weight.

“I would guess it’s been several weeks since they have been fed,” Mackie said. “One of the girls said (Mork) didn’t feed the dogs because she didn’t have the money for food.”

Because of their condition, the pets will be fed small amounts about five times a day until they can eat on a normal cycle, she said.

When presented with food, the cats tried to pry their way through the wire cage. A rabbit knocked the feeder off the cage wall to get at the food.

The three dogs tried to eat their food so fast, they scattered it all over the pen, Mackie said.

Mork remains under investigation for animal neglect, but the investigation won’t be complete until she talks with investigators, Mackie said. Mork was home Thursday but refused to answer her door, Mackie said.

Preuninger said CPS has taken temporary custody of both Mork’s daughters and CPS will also be in charge of any possible charges of neglect against the mother.

Mork did not respond to knocks to her door late Thursday and she could not be reached by telephone.

Neighbor Coron Todd, 31, said he’s glad to see the situation resolved. He said he’s had to make excuses to his guests about the smell emanating from Mork’s apartment. He even installed weather stripping around his door to keep the odor from coming inside.

“We’ve been having a lot of problems with them for a while. She always locks her kids out of the house,” Todd said of Mork. “But the smell, I could not take it.”

Mackie said she has seen worse conditions in a career that started in 1970.

“But I don’t want to see this bad ever again. There are lots of alternatives for children and pets. If you can’t care for them, ask for help. That’s that bottom line.”