Man, 30, guilty of B&E and attempted bestiality

When police found the intruder at the Ottawa stables, he was in a stall with his pants down and his penis up, standing next to a miniature pony that had been tied up and lubed up with massage oil.

“I'm sorry, it's not what it looks like,” Ryan Dodd, 30, immediately told police officers, according to their notes cited at his criminal trial last week for break and enter, and attempted bestiality, in which he was found guilty of both.

Whatever it looked like, Ottawa Police and OPP officers responding to the break-and-enter call early on Jan. 5, 2019, told him to put his pants on, and he did so backward, saying “this is embarrassing.”

Police found the smell of scented body oil overwhelming.

Dodd was co-operative with arresting officers and said he had been drinking and did two lines of cocaine a few hours before breaking into the barn.

The miniature pony, its hair coat left greasy, smelled of perfume for days, and police noted her genitalia appeared shiny.

Police seized an empty bottle of body oil and rope. The pony had been restrained with one rope around her neck and another around her hind quarters.

A veterinarian exam revealed no trauma to the pony's vaginal area or rectum. Three swabs showed no semen or oil from the vagina, hamstring region or hind legs.

The veterinarian noted a “copious oily, perfumed substance” on the rump and found that the pony's vulva was abnormally clean and there was no oily film palpable around the vulva lips.

The successful prosecution by Ottawa assistant Crown attorney Tara Dobec proved only attempted bestiality. Dodd's defence was that he had broken into the barn only to masturbate. The medical examination also showed no sexual assault.

Dodd didn't testify in his own defence.

Police, who responded within 15 minutes of the call, found Dodd's Chevy pickup truck parked a couple hundred metres down the road from the barn. The engine was still hot.

Dodd was a private in the Army and worked as a vehicle technician. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces in January 2013 and was released in February 2017. He had no deployments and was posted mainly to CFB Borden and Petawawa.

The morning he was arrested, just after 3 a.m., Dodd told police he had been dishonourably discharged from the military in 2017.

Dodd will be subjected to a sexual behaviour assessment while he awaits sentencing and is expected to appeal the case later this year.