A Lyons woman has been fined $200 and banned from owning animals for life after RSPCA inspectors found an insect-infested dog dying in her backyard.
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When asked why she had not taken the pomeranian-cross to a vet, the woman shrugged and said, "it's just an animal", the ACT Magistrates Court heard.
The inspectors seized the dog, which they found lying prone, unable to get up, emaciated, and its skin crawling with ants and flies. It smelled, had dental disease, multiple organ disease and renal failure.
The dog was euthanised almost immediately back at the RSPCA.
Nora Kalolo, 58, had pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to seek veterinary treatment to alleviate pain, and appeared before court on Wednesday for sentencing.
Kalolo's lawyer Mary-Anne Ellis told the court the dog came to be in her client's care after it was left at the house by her daughter's friend four years ago.
The woman rarely ventured into the backyard, and was kept busy caring for her very ill husband in hospital, her grandchildren after school and part-time study.
"She did not know the dog was as sick as it was. She did not know it was possible to surrender the dog," Ms Ellis told the court.
Ms Ellis said the RSPCA's brief of evidence was "repetitious", making matters seem worse than they were. She said her client had accepted responsibility for the dog as the adult at the house.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Wren told the court the dog was in the worst condition the treating vet had ever seen, and the woman had shown a "staggering disregard for the life of the animal".
Any vet would have euthanised the dog for free, she said.
On Wednesday, Magistrate Robert Cook convicted Kalolo, fined her $200 and imposed a lifetime ban on her keeping animals. The ban was not contested.
"It was not simply a dog, it was a living thing which you allowed to perish in your backyard," he said in sentencing.
He noted the RSPCA's brief was "excessive" in its reporting of the offence, but said he was not sure Kalolo felt remorse, even though she had pleaded guilty.
RSPCA senior inspector Catherine Croatto, who rescued the dog and was in court on Wednesday, said the sentence wasn't adequate.
The maximum penalty is a $15,000 fine and 12 months imprisonment.
The rescue organisation's chief Tammy Ven Dange said: "Ordinarily we would be completely ecstatic for a lifetime ban to be issued by the courts.
"However, in this case you cannot punish someone with an animal ownership ban when they don't want any more animals.
"She obviously didn't even want this one."
