A pensioner has been convicted of ill-treatment of animals for keeping dozens of emaciated and paralysed pets in a home filled inches thick with their own feces.
Ann Wynd, 75, was convicted of ill-treating dozens of animals after SSPCA officers found dogs in cages crusted with inches-thick filth.
Several animals had to be put down as a result of the discovery. Inspectors initially thought one dog was dead, another was 'almost paraplegic' and a horse was found to be clinically emaciated.
Animal feces were also found on the kitchen floor and walls, and appeared to have been there for months.
The pensioner, who had denied cruelty, was convicted of 29 charges of causing unnecessary suffering to animals including 19 dogs, two donkeys, a sheep, three Shetland ponies and a Welsh cob horse.
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard she kept a menagerie of animals, including dogs, sheep, donkeys, horses and goats, in appalling conditions at her run-down smallholding farm at Standburn, near Falkirk.
At an earlier hearing Sheriff Derek O'Carroll banned her from keeping animals for three years - except for four dogs and four sheep.
Today, after being told that Wynd had made 'improvements' to the area where she kept sheep, he allowed her to be given another four animals which had been seized by the SSPCA.
He placed her under social work supervision for three years, under the terms of a community payback order, and added a further condition requiring her to let qualified vets inspect her animals and her property.
Sheriff O'Carroll said that Wynd was still not suitable to be given back eight Shetland ponies, but he told her he would review his banning order on December 22.
A four-day trial earlier this year was told that the offences came to light when Wynd's husband died suddenly in November 2012.
Police went to her farm to deal with the death, and called in the SSPCA because of the conditions they found.
SSPCA Inspector Nicola Liddell, who went to the premises at once, told Wynd's trial: 'I was immediately shocked as to what I was seeing. We had concerns for Mrs Wynd because it was so unhygienic.'
Inspector Liddell said she had realised something was wrong even before she got to the door. She said: 'There was a strong smell of ammonia and faeces and a strong doggy smell. It was overpowering and it caught the back of my throat as I entered the room.
'I was immediately shocked as to what I was seeing. The floor was wet, thick, and sticky with what turned out to be a mixture of mud and faeces.'
There were eight cages in the room, some piled on top of each other, containing up to two dogs each.
Some of them were stacked up too high and there was no proper floor on the top ones to prevent
feces and urine coming through to the ones below.
All the cages were covered in filth - a mixture of chewed up bedding and the dogs' own feces. Some of the dogs had barely enough room to turn round, let alone lie down flat.
Mrs Liddell said the foul mixture was 'inches thick' on some of the cages and the dogs seemed 'distressed and frightened'.
Mrs Liddell said conditions were similar in the kitchen where the smell 'just took your breath away'.
She said: 'We had concerns for Mrs Wynd because it was so unhygienic. All the surfaces were piled up with food bowls, food utensils, old clothing, newspapers - it was piled high.'
More dogs were found in 'filthy' dark condition in sheds outside, and a donkey was found which appeared 'nearly emaciated' and struggling to stand while another horse also appeared to be 'very thin'.
Wynd, now of Maddiston, Falkirk, had denied the charges and defended herself at her trial.
She claimed that the animal welfare officials had made mistakes. She said: 'They've got my animals mixed up. There are things that are not true.'
But Inspector Liddell replied: ' It was very sad and almost distressing for myself to see that humans had chosen to live in a highly unsuitable environment for their own health - but that was their choice. These animals couldn't choose the condition they lived in.'
(Daily Mail - Oct 22, 2014)
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