No jail time, no ban on pets for man guilty of bestiality

Brian Cutteridge pleaded guilty to having sex with his dog on Oct. 2, 2012. (CTV)

A Vancouver man who pleaded guilty to having sex with his pet Rottweiler will not recieve any jail time and will only be banned from owning female dogs, provincial court ruled Tuesday.

Brian Anthony Cutteridge, 38, pleaded guilty bestiality, a charge that comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The judge handed down a suspended sentence and three years' probation with conditions that include a ban on owning female dogs, providing a list of all animals he owns and monthly SPCA inspections.

Cutteridge was charged with bestiality in February after his veterinarian approached the SPCA with concerns about an infection one of his dogs was suffering from.

His trial was set to begin last week, but the case was adjourned after prosecutors announced they anticipated a guilty plea in the case.

The SPCA investigated Cutteridge and seized three of his dogs. Marcie Moriarty, the agency’s manager of cruelty investigations, said two of the dogs have since been adopted while one was put down.

“Unfortunately one of them was suffering from an untreatable medical condition and it was decided that the most humane thing was to put him down,” Moriarty told CTV News last week.

The dog’s medical condition had nothing to do with the allegations against Cutteridge, she added.

The SPCA says Cutteridge has written papers and posted comments online defending zoophilia, arguing that prohibiting sex between humans and animals is unconstitutional.

CTV News found one online posting by a Brian Anthony Cutteridge titled “For the Love of Dog: On the Legal Prohibition of Zoophilia in Canada and the United States.”

The author wrote, “Laws which criminalize zoophilia based on societal abhorrence of such acts rather than any real harm caused by such acts are an unjust and unconstitutional infringement on individual liberty.”

The SPCA’s position is that bestiality is harmful to animals and should remain illegal.