Case Report

Suzanne Greenhalgh, 43, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, lost patience with the animals after coming home from a 16-hour shift at work and drowned her pet dog and its five puppies because they were too noisy.  Greenhalgh has been banned for keeping animals for 25 years by magistrates.

Greenhalgh held the animals underwater in the kitchen sink before dumping their bodies in plastic bags in her wheelie bin. Magistrates in Oldham sentenced her to 240 hours of community service and ordered her to pay costs of more than �860 after she admitted cruelty to the animals.

The court heard how the dogs were found by an RSPCA inspector following a tip-off.

Inspector Liz Walker knocked on the family's door last July, asking to look inside the wheelie bin by the front door.

Inside, she found a carrier bag containing Greenhalgh's pet terrier, Poppy, sopping wet and clearly dead.

Only then did Greenhalgh confess to drowning the dog and its puppies and told the inspector that the five other tiny bodies were also in the bin.  Post-mortems were carried out on the dogs by a vet, who found that each had died from drowning.

Each would have been conscious underwater for between 30 and 90 seconds and, in that time, would've been in "considerable distress" the court was told.

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