An emaciated dog had to be put down after her owner claimed he could not afford to take her to a vet. Crossbreed Sacha weighed just 26 pounds when she was found collapsed on a kitchen floor at a flat in Withins Drive, Bolton.
Her owner, Philip Robertson, has now been banned from keeping all animals for the rest of his life after pleading guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to Sacha.
The 49-year-old was also given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for one year, at Bolton Magistrates’ Court on June 6. Magistrates heard that RSPCA animal rescue officer Jessica Pierce had visited the property on January 3 of this year following welfare concerns for a dog that was living there. Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link. “I arrived at the address and was met by a man at the door who was not the owner of the dog but I was invited in and shown upstairs,” she said in her evidence. “In the kitchen I observed an elderly female brindle dog lying on an old coat on the floor. "She was visibly very thin with every bone showing.
When I tried to get her to stand up her feet were buckling underneath her and she wasn't able to walk more than a couple of steps.