A woman, Crystal Smith, living in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, took two of her four dogs for a walk. She went to a tennis court where she had been before and let them roam freely there after closing the gate because it was an enclosed space.
However, she did not see a hole in the fence and while she was on her cell phone her dogs escaped. They made their way to a place called Wishingwell Place where they encountered a cat on a fence. A neighbour saw what was happening. The dogs were barking at the cat and trying to get him/her. The cat’s name was Meshroudi.
Then the dogs grabbed the cat and mauled him to death on the ground. Smith arrived and it took her 27 minutes to contain her dogs and to get them into her car. They were bloodied.
In essence, you were reckless, letting the dogs off leash when you had no authority to take them off leash
Judge Lori Marshall
Smith was tried after being charged under the province’s Animal Health and Protection Act. The charge: unlawfully allowing a companion animal to cause a hazard and failing to keep a dog tethered or penned. She pleaded not guilty but was found guilty. She’ll be sentenced on June 25th. The crime occurred in August 2018.
Update: the defendant was sentenced to pay a $900 fine and banned from having care and control of Keiko (an Amstaff-Boston terrier). The judge permitted the defendant to keep custody of Luna (an Amstaff-bulldog) and two other dogs. The judge banned her from allowing Luna to reside with children. The sentence was challenged and the Supreme Court upheld the sentence as I understand it.The judge ordered that Smith’s daughter should take care of Keiko and if she couldn’t cope, she should then contact the SPCA. This part of the order was challenged by the prosecutor Renee Coates because she argued that the court could not make an order against Smith’s daughter as she was not party to any offence. Comment: I think that argument is poor because the court is simply making a direction that the dog is looked after by an individual other than the defendant. And in any case, the daughter had volunteered to take Keiko.