Gloria Steiger says she and her husband, Tim, have no plans to run a commercial kennel with their nine dogs.

But they are discovering Buxton might have to treat them as one under new rules passed following the largest kennel raid in the state’s history.

Those rules stipulate that any resident owning six dogs or cats has to apply for a conditional kennel permit.

On Monday, five neighbors who abut or live close to the Steigers’ property on 33 Lord Road voiced their concerns at a Buxton Planning Board meeting over her application to continue housing her nine dogs. In response, the Planning Board has scheduled a site walk – its second – for Monday and another public hearing Oct. 14.

“If no one had showed up tonight, this looked like a done deal,” said Planning Board member David Anderson. “We need to listen to the residents’ concerns and make sure that Mrs. Steiger is meeting all of the ordinance’s requirements.”

The neighbors are concerned with several areas of the permit application, said Tim Lauzon.

Lauzon said he and his neighbors believe Steiger doesn’t meet ordinance conditions, such as the lack of a cement run for the dogs, and that her waste pile is less than 250 feet from his well.

“In the ordinance… it states that all dog runs shall be paved, cement, asphalt, or a similar material,” Lauzon explained to the board. “We are interested to know what material is being used to provide the cleanliness and ease of maintenance.”

Board Vice Chairman Jeremiah Ross said Steiger is not going to use the property as a kennel and should be viewed differently, even though she falls under the kennel ordinance.

Lauzon said he understood that the Steigers were not running a kennel, but, he argued, the law does not allow for exceptions based on commercial or non-commercial use – a point that did not go unnoticed by the board.

“That’s where the dilemma lies,” Anderson said.

“Unfortunately, regardless of what we feel individually, we need to either pass or deny the permit based on the ordinance,” said Anderson. “It’s a tough situation because she isn’t going to be using the property for a commercial kennel and she has had the dogs for years, but we need to make a decision based on whether she meets the criteria of the ordinance.”

The Steigers own seven Basenjis – a small, African breed known for its lack of a bark – and two mixed-breed dogs. They have owned nine dogs since 2005, and also own two horses.

According to their permit application, the dogs and horses all live on the Steigers’ 6.6 acres, where they have a dog yard, attached to the house, that is 75 feet by 30 feet and surrounded by a chain-link fence. They keep the horses on land behind the house.

“These are my pets,” Steiger said at the meeting Monday. “This is nothing new, and I have had this many animals for years.”

A letter submitted to the Planning Board by abutters Kathy Peasley, Kenneth Peasley, Lauzon and his wife, Hoa Lauzon, also questioned the board’s preliminary site walk on Sept. 15, which was attended by only board members Ross and Dave Savage. The board’s findings from that walk indicated dog feces was composted, the yard was maintained, and that waste from all of the Steigers’ animals was composted with manure and turned into fertilizer for the pasture.

In their letter, neighbors disagreed with the findings, claiming that odor from the waste was a problem, as was the appearance of the property.

“We feel having only two out of six board members attend the site walk was not a good representation,” the letter stated. “We hope that those that did not attend review all the facts or schedule their own site walk to form their own opinion regarding the findings.”

Board member Keith Emery agreed.

“I think it is in our best interest and the best interest of the residents to schedule a second site walk,” said Emery. “I know I don’t have a problem with that.”

Residents also said they were concerned Steiger could start breeding her dogs.

Steiger stated in her application letter to the Planning Board in June that she used to breed her Basenjis, but stopped nearly two years ago. She said she would not use the property to house other dogs, but would occasionally show her Basenjis.

“These really are just our pets,” Tim Steiger said on Tuesday at the family’s house.

Ross said the Steigers cannot begin breeding dogs because the permit is conditional. The Steigers would need to to apply for an additional permit and go through the Planning Board process if they wanted to begin breeding dogs, he said.

The board will conduct its second site walk, which the public can attend, on Monday at 6 p.m. It will announce its findings when the public hearing is continued Oct. 14 at 7 p.m.

Steiger, meanwhile, is patient.

“What I want to do is continue to house the dogs that I have, and that’s it,” she said.

Tim Steiger plays with two of his families seven Besenjis on Tuesday afternoon. Steiger’s wife Gloria Steiger is applying for a permit from Buxton that would allow her to house her seven Besenjis and two more mutts as pets, which now falls under the town’s kennel ordinance.