Pleasant Pet Resort owner avoids jail time in sentencing over dog in her care who lost tail

A Common Pleas judge on Monday sentenced the former owner of a dog kennel in West Nottingham for neglecting an older dog who had come to board at her facility and lost its tail in the week it spent there.

Judge Patrick Carmody rejected the recommendation of the prosecutor in the case to punish Pleasant Pet Resort owner Denise Durfor with two months in Chester County Prison, but said he would impose restrictions on her ability to board dogs during the year of probation he ordered she undergo.

“If I hear of you boarding dogs, I’ll issue a bench warrant and throw you in jail,” Carmody told Durfor, who had tearfully pleaded that she had meant no harm in how the dog, an injured Lhasa Apso named Roscoe, was treated. “I think that people who might want to board dogs with you should be protected.”

Carmody also said that Durfor, who was found guilty of a single count of neglect of animals, a third degree misdemeanor, at a trial last month, must complete 100 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine. She must also complete a course improper dog care.

The judge said he did not believe that Durfor had mistreated Roscoe in any way when the older pet stayed at her kennel in 2021, but that it had been neglected when Durfor left the state to visit relatives in Ohio, where she now lives. But instead of letting the dog’s owners know what had happened to the dog, including the loss of most of its tail, she “panicked” and tried to cover up what had happened.

Assistant District Attorney Alyssa Amoroso had asked the judge to incarcerate Durfor for her behavior, not only in neglecting to care for Roscoe but also for misrepresenting what had happened when he was at the kennel and incorrectly telling his owners that the dog was doing fine.

Durfor, who testified in her own defense during the trial and said she did

not know how Roscoe had come to lose his tail, was found not guilty of the more serious charge of aggravated cruelty of animals causing injury or death, a felony.

Durfor was arrested by Brandywine Valley Humane Society Police Officer Daniel Achuff in October 2021 after he was called to investigate what had happened to Roscoe, a 15-year-old dog who had been brought by its owners to the pet kennel in August 2021.

The dog’s owner, Marie Means, said that she had taken Roscoe to the kennel on Aug. 6, 2021 while she went on vacation. She told Achuff that when her daughter went to pick Roscoe up on Aug. 17, 2021, Durfor handed the dog to her and said she had just been bathed and had been wrapped in a towel.

But when the girl went to put Roscoe in her car, she noticed blood on the towel.

When she unwrapped the towel, she saw that most of his tail was missing and his flesh was exposed.

In her testimony, Dr. Tanya Emslie of the Lancaster Pet Emergency Treatment clinic in Lancaster County, said that Roscoe came to her with his hind quarters covered in fecal material. She estimated that ¾ of his tail was missing, and some of its vertebrae exposed.

She tried to calm the dog, who she said was depressed and dehydrated, and gave him antibiotics. There were maggots in his exposed wound, which she cleaned.

The Means took Roscoe to their own veterinarian in Willow Street, Lancaster County. There, Dr. Molly Arnold found that he was severely injured, and while she tried to treat his infection his condition continued to deteriorate and he eventually had to be humanely euthanized. Arnold told Achuff that if Roscoe’s injury had been treated in a timely manner while boarding

at Pleasant Pet Resort, he would have been able to avoid the severe infection he developed.

Durfor said in her defense that she could not have noticed the injury or caused it because she had been visiting relatives in Ohio during the time period when Roscoe was at the kennel. Prosecution witnesses, however, disputed the time sequence she gave for her absence.

Defense attorney Ryan Borchik had asked Carmody to give his client a a probationary sentence, citing her lack of a criminal history and actions that he said were more indicative of panic than intention to neglect the dog.

In the end, Carmody told Means, who sat in the courtroom but did not address the judge, that he felt sorry for her loss.

“He had a good life,” he said of Roscoe. “I am sorry that he died the way he did.”