Emma Paulsen, B.C. dog walker, gets jail time for animal cruelty

Interesting case. She got a far stiffer sentence than people who meant to harm or kill their dogs. Her own dog was among those killed - she was someone who loved animals but made a very bad error in judgement, then lied about it.

She has no criminal history, has a job and two kids. Does it really serve the community by locking her up for 6 months? Give her lots of community service or jail on weekends or something. I'd be much more out for jail for the people who tortured or killed the animals for shits and giggles.

She had no criminal history, but I thought I read somewhere that it wasn't her first incident of leaving dogs locked in a hot car. I might be mistaken.

But, yea, I don't see 6 months as a service to the community, even though she did cause a lot of problems by lying about it and showing no remorse afterward.

Then again, we are starting to see a lot more animal abuse, from cats to dogs to horses. A message has to be sent to people that they need to get help before the animals are in need of protection, not when they've already died from neglect.

I imagine the sentence is for lying to the police.

No. That's not true. We are starting to hear more about it from media sources. The perception of animals and 'animal rights' have changed.

She had no criminal history, but I thought I read somewhere that it wasn't her first incident of leaving dogs locked in a hot car. I might be mistaken.

But, yea, I don't see 6 months as a service to the community, even though she did cause a lot of problems by lying about it and showing no remorse afterward.

Then again, we are starting to see a lot more animal abuse, from cats to dogs to horses. A message has to be sent to people that they need to get help before the animals are in need of protection, not when they've already died from neglect.

She was warned about leaving the dogs where she did, apparently she did this frequently, if I understood it right.

She got 3 months for the mischief charge, ie lying to police. Be interesting how other mischief charges have been dealt with, ie is her sentence normal for the offense. She got three months for the animal abuse charge.

We had a woman get 3 years parole for stabbing her partner to death in a jealous drunken rage. Many other occasions where attacks on people get a lower sentence than this.

If this sets a new trend for stiffer sentences for animal abuse, then her going to jail will have served a purpose to society. If the next puke who ties his dog to his bumper gets a slap on the wrist, then her sentence would be a farce.

As I say, make her serve time on weekends - that's been done before, and it allows her to keep working and looking after her kids, presumably. (Her mother is in the picture to help, I think.)

The unsually stiff sentence is because the dogs were other peoples' property. In Canada, Animal Cruetly is still handled as if it's little more than simple property crime.

Had they all been her own dogs, or stray dogs, she would have gotten alot less.

Totally agree with you. I understand how messed up the situation is, but its very true that there has been worse cases of people who intentionally did something and they got a slap on the wrist.

Yep,and she didn't learn from the other people's slaps on the wrist. Presumably the judge thinks someone else WILL learn from what she got handed....