GUILTY PLEA IN ANIMAL CASE

Rhonda Lea Kerr must pay $1,000 and is banned from owning animals for five years after two emaciated dogs she owned were seized and euthanized

Rhonda Lea Kerr must pay $1,000 and is banned from owning animals for five years after her emaciated dogs were seized and euthanized

A woman whose two dogs had to be euthanized after they were taken away from her was fined $1,000 Thursday and ordered not to own any companion animals for five years.

Rhonda Lea Kerr appeared before Chief Judge Nancy Orr in provincial court in Georgetown where she pleaded guilty to two counts of causing or allowing a companion animal to be in distress.

The court heard animal protection officers seized the dogs in December after someone saw them tied up outside her home and called the P.E.I. Humane Society.

Crown attorney Nathan Beck read an agreed statement of facts, saying when animal protection officers arrived they found a 13-year-old male dog in a doghouse.

When they approached, the dog appeared to be shaking or quivering, Beck said.

That dog was chained to a tree.

Beck said a two-year-old female was in a fenced-in enclosure and appeared scared when approached.

The court heard the animal protection officers had a hard time opening the enclosure door because it was frozen to the ground.

Beck said both dogs were emaciated with marks and scrapes on their bodies.

On a scale of one to 10, the animals protection officers estimated the female’s body mass was a one, Beck said. They estimated the male’s was a two out of 10.

The court heard Kerr said the dogs had run away and returned after three or four months in the condition they were found in.

Beck said the dogs made a physical recovery, but two attempts to have the male adopted were unsuccessful after he ate through a door in one home and became aggressive in a second. The female was also aggressive. Both animals had to be put down because the mental damage to them was irreversible, Beck said.

Kerr told the court she tried to help the dogs recover after their return, but she didn’t take the dogs to the vet because she didn’t have the money for it.

She knows now she should have called the humane society, Kerr said.

Orr, who saw photos of the dogs, told Kerr the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words would be accurate in this case.

“It’s hard to understand how you could look at an animal like that and not seek immediate assistance for it,” Orr said.

Orr fined Kerr $500 for each dog and placed her on probation for two years, during which time she must complete an education program for the care of companion animals.

Kerr must also pay $4,592 to the P.E.I. Humane Society in costs for the care of the dogs.

She is banned from owning, having custody of, having control of or living with a companion animal for five years.