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A California woman has been jailed after allowing a pack of over 20 goldendoodles to cause a nuisance in the local area, according to reports.

Melinda Stewart of Napa, California, had pleaded no contest to nine charges related to the dogs she owned according to a Napa Valley Register report.

After failing to comply with officials, however, she is now an inmate in the Napa County Jail without bail.

Stewart has been suspected of letting her pack of goldendoodles roam at large, creating a public nuisance. She is also accused of illegal breeding without a proper dog kennel permit, assaulting an animal service officer, and disobeying an order to surrender the dogs, according to the report. The reports against Stewart and her dogs have been ongoing for the last two years.

Newsweek has contacted Stewart's attorney Justin Wooten via phone for comment.

"Your client didn't meet with probation as ordered," Judge Monique Langhorne of Napa County Superior Court said on Tuesday morning.

Speaking to Wooten, Stewart's public defender, the judge said she had failed to comply with the plea agreement terms she had received.

On June 22, Stewart was told to provide probation officers with a list of the over 20 goldendoodles she originally owned. She was told to provide details regarding where all of the dogs ended up and the current status of each animal, whether they had been sold or adopted. Stewart did not comply, according to the local newspaper.

Members of the Napa community have also complained about Stewart's alleged crimes. In April, her neighbor Paul Woodward said he has found her dogs wandering on his property multiple times and had attacked his dogs.

"Her dogs come over to my house and attacked my dogs," he said, according to an April 26 report in The Sun.

"They've bitten my (German Shepherd) dogs twice in the past four months."

Others frustrated by Stewart launched a Change.org petition to have her "shut down."

"This petition is in regard to Melinda Stewart and her dogs that roam freely and [allegedly] kill neighborhood pets," the petition, launched on March 21, 2023, said.

"Her dogs have been caught by Napa County Animal Control multiple times for many years and this woman continues to get them back.

"She is also running an [alleged] illegal puppy mill and she needs to be stopped. Please sign and ask friends to sign. We need to get Napa County to hold her responsible and take her animals away for animal neglect and cruelty."

The spokesperson for Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley, Carlos Villatoro, has said that once Stewart meets with a probation officer, she can be released from jail, according to the Napa Valley Register report. However, he did not say how long that would take to arrange.

Villatoro spoke to Newsweek and said they do not comment on pending matters. He did state that "Ms. Stewart is due next in court on August 7, 2023, at 10:15 a.m. for sentencing."

Update 7/14/23, 10:50 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Carlos Villatoro.

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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