A B.C. dog walker pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two charges stemming from the deaths of six dogs in her care, and her attempt to cover it up.
Emma Paulsen pleaded guilty to two of six charges against her in a Surrey courthouse, including one count of causing an animal to be in distress and one count of reporting a false offence to police. Four other counts of causing an animal to be in distress were stayed, the Crown said.
"She lied to everybody," dog owner Kat Chapman told reporters outside a Surrey courthouse on Wednesday. "She lied to the media. She lied to the police. She lied."
Chapman's dog was among those that died in the back of Paulsen's truck.
Paulsen will be sentenced in January, and could face up to two years in jail and a $75,000 fine under the animal cruelty charge.
"I would really like to see jail time," said Jennifer Meyers, whose dog was also among those that died.
Last May, Paulsen told police and the owners of six dogs she was caring for that the animals had been stolen from the back of her truck in Langley, B.C.
Their bodies were later found in a ditch in Abbotsford, showing signs of death by heat exhaustion. Police say they died in the back of Paulsen's truck on a day when the temperature rose as high as 25 C.
Before their bodies were found, Paulsen tearfully claimed that the dogs were stolen out of the back of her truck while she visited a public washroom.
"When I came back, the top of my flap on my truck was open and the dogs weren't there," Paulsen told reporters at the time.
After the guilty pleas, Paulsen faced irate animal rights activists outside the courthouse, including Chapman.
"You're just lucky I'm not allowed to do anything!" the dog owner shouted.
Meyers said she has mixed feelings about the day's result.
"It's nice that it doesn't have to be dragged out through trial, but the hard part about a guilty plea is that you know there will be a lesser sentence," she told reporters outside the courthouse.
With a report by CTV Vancouver’s Lisa Rossington
