Bad Pet Owners - Pet News

A woman locked a dog in a bedroom until it died of starvation because she was too knackered to care for it.

Ruth Carlisle, 27, admitted failing to care for her friends Labrador, which she had offered to look after.

Carlisle, from Cambridge, locked the dog called Snuggles in a bedroom for three weeks and left it food and water once a week, Ely magistrates heard.

She was ordered to complete 60 hours of unpaid work, pay £250 costs and was banned for life from keeping animals.

RSPCA officer Mark Niepold found Snuggles corpse swarming with fleas in what he called the worst infestation he had seen in 15 years in the job, the court heard.

Magistrates were shown photographs of Snuggles emaciated body and her claw marks at the bedroom door.

Audrey Clark, 56, also from Cambridge, had entrusted Snuggles to Carlisles care after the dogs brother and sister were taken away by concerned family members.

Carlisle told the court: I just could not hack it. I did not have the time. I had to go to YMCA for a training course and had to get up early and sometimes I was knackered when I came back.

I was worried when she stopped barking, but I did not want to get in there and find something.

The RSPCA also brought charges against Clark, despite her denying any knowledge of the cruelty, because she had failed to check on her dog.

Matthew Edwards, mitigating, said Clark had trouble walking because of osteoarthritis and had provided Carlisle with £8-a-week to buy dog food.

Presiding magistrate Dr Christine Shaw said Clark was equally to blame for the neglect.

She said: You said you trusted Miss Carlisle to look after your dog, but you said yourself she could not even look after herself.

And you said it was all right when you heard the dog had not been exercised for three weeks.

Clark was fined £100, ordered to pay £500 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

She was also banned from keeping animals for life - but was allowed to keep up to three cats.

Has the world gone completely mad?

How in the name of all that is right can anyone think that this is acceptable. Equally, how can the courts ban this woman from keeping animals but let her look after cats? It is as good as saying we understand you are unable to look after dogs but as cats are easier.....

If a bad parent neglected a trouble child in this way, would it then be OK for the Courts to to say We understand how hard it is looking after difficult  children so we will only allow you to care for wellbehaved ones from now on!!!!!!!!!!