Officer says dogs were kept in appalling conditions

Rotten meat, absolute filth, no water, dermatitis and malnourishment... these were just some of the horrors that 28 dogs had to endure in a yard that looked more like a rubbish dump, a court heard yesterday.

Animal Welfare Officer Rodrick Marsden yesterday said that on April 24 an inspection was carried out after his office had received an anonymous phone call about a garage in Birkirkara. Three of the dogs were running around but 25 were kept in small cages made of chicken wire.

He was testifying in the case against 43-year-old Mario Cutajar, who is pleading not guilty to holding the dogs in cages, animal cruelty and keeping dogs without a licence.

During Mr Marsden's testimony, Police Inspector Kevin Farrugia exhibited photos of the disastrous state of the yard. Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani was so struck by what she saw that she made sure court reporters got to see for themselves the state of the dogs.

In one of the pictures one could see what looked like large stones and Magistrate Padovani asked Mr Marsden what they were doing near the cages. He said that they were not stones but the dog's excrement which had built up over a period of time.

The dogs could be seen in the cages sitting with their paws pushing through the chicken wire because there was no space for them to stand.

No sufficient shelter was provided for the dogs as just flimsy pieces of wood covered them and some of the cages were sitting in wet soil which meant that their paws were soaked with soil and infected.

At one point Mr Marsden described how he came across a dog that had its paws chopped off and was left lying in a small cage.

He said that in some of the cages there were decomposing left-overs from dead animals, no adequate food was given to the dogs and almost none had any water.

Testifying, Olaf Gauci from the SPCA said that four of the dogs including the one that had its paws cut off had to be put down because they were in such a bad state. But thankfully all the rest were re-homed and the last two left last week.

Mr Cutajar had denied using the dogs as bait for dog fighting or breeding the dogs for fights in the statement he gave to the police.

Lawyer Mark Vassallo asked the magistrate to ban the publication of his client's name as he has an elderly mother who might take a turn for the worst if she finds out about this case.

The request was turned down.