A B.C. dog walker has been sentenced to six months in jail in connection with the deaths of six dogs in her care and her subsequent attempt to cover it up.
A judge criticized Emma Paulsen Wednesday for her “prolonged deception” because it took her days to come clean about what happened to the dogs.
Last November, Paulsen pleaded guilty to two of six charges against her, 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.
Last May, Paulsen told police and the dogs’ owners 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, and showed signs of death by heat exhaustion. Police say they died in the back of Paulsen's truck. The temperature on that day had risen to 25 C.
Before their bodies were found, Paulsen tearfully claimed that the dogs were stolen out of the back of her truck while she was in a public restroom.
"When I came back, the top of my flap on my truck was open and the dogs weren't there," Paulsen told reporters.
In addition to her jail time, Paulsen was sentenced to two years’ probation. She was also slapped with a lifetime ban against caring for other people’s animals for business purposes, and a 10-year ban on owning animals herself.
