A dog breeder surrendered about 130 dogs to Lincoln County authorities this week in what some animal advocates say is the latest in a string of puppy mills broken up across the state.

A neighbor alerted Lincoln County Animal Services, according to reports, and officers told the breeder she had to choose between having the dogs vaccinated and surrendering them to authorities.

The woman reportedly told officials she could not afford to vaccinate the animals and agreed to surrender them.

The dogs' owner has not been criminally charged. Her name also was not released and the location of her breeding operation in Lincoln County is unclear.

Officials said 120-135 dogs and puppies were surrendered. Most of them are smaller breeds such as poodles and terriers.

The former owner of the dogs has been cooperative, said Kim Green of Lincoln County Emergency Medical Services, which oversees the county's animal control.

Volunteers from across the region stepped in to help, and the dogs were taken to a shelter in Lincoln County, where they were being examined Tuesday. Many had fleas, ticks, matted fur and skin problems, reported WCNC-TV.

Officials said many of the dogs will be sent to a shelter in Guilford County.

Animal control officers told WSOC-TV that they didn't consider the breeding operation a puppy mill and that although some of the dogs needed medical attention, none were in critical condition.

But Kim Alboum, N.C. director of the Humane Society of the United States, described it as a puppy mill where the dogs' health and welfare were ignored.

She said she'd heard from volunteers who described the conditions as awful.

"The animals were clearly neglected in many ways," she said.

Alboum said the Lincoln County case was the fifth puppy mill discovered in North Carolina in four months.

In June, Caldwell County animal control officers busted what they called a puppy mill in Hudson, about 70 miles northwest of Charlotte.

There, authorities said they found dogs living in their own feces in cages stacked atop one another. Some dogs had serious infections and severely matted fur. The owner of Mason Creek Kennels, William "Bill" Thomas Allen, was later charged with 104 counts of animal cruelty.

Puppy mills have become a problem in North Carolina because the state lacks regulations specific to dog breeders, Alboum said.

"Left and right, our animal control officers are having to deal with large-scale breeders who have horrendous conditions," she said.