Female tenant left sick dog alone to starve to death. Court sentenced her to 40 days in prison and fined her 200,000 yuan

The female tenant left her sick dog alone in the fourth-floor apartment during the Chinese New Year last year and starved to death. (Signal photo, not the dog in this case)

A female tenant in Kaohsiung City left her sick dog alone in her fourth-floor apartment during the Chinese New Year last year. The poor dog was extremely hungry and crazily chewed the furniture and door frames in the house before it died. It eventually died tragically due to the loss of vital organ function. The landlord angrily called the police when he opened the door and saw the house full of excrement and the dead body of his pet dog. After hearing the case, the Qiaotou District Court sentenced the woman to 40 days in detention for violating the Animal Protection Law and other crimes, and fined her 200,000 yuan.

The verdict pointed out that the woman had rented a room on the fourth floor of an apartment in Kaohsiung City from the landlord since December 20 of the previous year, and had kept two dogs in the room. However, since mid-February last year during the Lunar New Year, one of the sick dogs had been left alone in an empty house without anyone to take care of it.

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Tortured by extreme hunger and illness, the dog frantically scratched and bit the furniture, objects and door frames in the house in order to survive. Because no one was cleaning up the scene, the dog excrement all over the ground seriously stained the floor. The scene was like a "furry child purgatory". The poor dog lost the function of its vital organs and died due to no one to feed or drink. The landlord sadly exposed the case and filed a lawsuit against the police for investigation.

Although the woman admitted to renting a house and raising two dogs, she denied abusing the dogs and argued that she took the other dog to live with a friend because one of the dogs was sick and might be contagious. She went back to Taoyuan for two days during the Chinese New Year last year and "left water and food" before leaving. She also refuted the blame by saying that "the dog's death may have been due to illness."

After the trial, the judge believed that the tragic situation of the furniture and doorframes being chewed to pieces showed that the dogs suffered great hunger and pain during their lifetimes. The defendant had been away for a long time without properly placing them. He had "uncertain intention" regarding the death of the dogs and the damage to the house. His defense was an evasion of responsibility and was not credible. After the whole case was heard by the summary court of Qiaotou District Court, the defendant was sentenced to 40 days of detention and a high fine of 200,000 yuan in accordance with the law. The original sentence was upheld after the second instance of appeal.