A pair of puppies, rescued Monday off the roof of a Lorain Street home in Sharon, might have been abandoned for days according to neighbors.

Two full-blooded Rottweilers, one male and one female, apparently made their way to the porch roof through an open second-floor window at 356 Lorain St. where they were discovered by neighbors who called 911 at about 7 p.m.

"The neighbors at 346 found them and I came up and got them off the roof," said Brian Trowbridge.

Trowbridge, 30, of 326 Lorain St., said he climbed onto a porch wall where he was able to coax the puppies close enough to the edge of the roof to grab them and take them down.

"They came right to me," he said.

Trowbridge said he didn't know the name of the family who lived at 356 Lorain, but said he thought they moved out "two to three weeks ago."

Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said she heard the woman who lived at 356 Lorain at the home Saturday, but added that before that it had been at least a week since she had seen anybody at the house. Newspapers from Sunday and Monday were on the front porch.

Although the second-floor windows were open with no screens, a chain and padlock secured the front door.

Sharon police called city firefighters for a ladder so they could get into the house through one of the second-floor windows; they wanted to see if any more puppies were inside.

Patrolman William H. Gregg described what he said were deplorable conditions inside: feces and rotting food throughout much of the house.

"It was bad," he said, adding that a bag of dog food was on the basement steps behind a closed door, out of the reach of the puppies, which he said he also believed had no access to water.

After being rescued, the puppies gulped down plenty of water and almost a 39-ounce coffee can filled with dog food provided by Trowbridge and his fiancé Kathy Royer.

Trowbridge and Ms. Royer took the dogs to their house where they said an official picked them up later Monday night to take them to the Shenango Valley Animal Shelter in Hermitage.

As for the puppies' future, neighbor Norman Boggs of 328 Lorain St. said he and his wife Karen would like to adopt one of them, while Trowbridge and Ms. Royer expressed an interest in adopting the other.

"We want the puppies; we fell in love with them," said Boggs, noting their owners returned home at about the same time they were being taken to the animal shelter.

Trowbridge said when the dogs' owners returned, they began arguing with their neighbors and he called Sharon police back to neighborhood.

Trowbridge also said this wasn't the first time dogs had to be picked up from the house.

"There were two dogs out back that nobody was feeding or watering and I called the animal shelter for those last week," he said. "I knew they had puppies then, but I didn't know if they were still there or not. They (animal shelter employees) said they couldn't hear anything, so they left."

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