News of a dog walker being jailed for six months, following the deaths in Richmond of six pets in her care, has been rippling around the local canine community.
And for anyone who spoke to the Richmond News or posted comments on social media, the reaction to the prison sentence has been categoric, to say the least.
As well as the jail time, Emma Paulsen was given two years probation, a 10-year ban on owning any pets and a lifetime ban on her caring for the animals of others professionally.
Last May, six dogs died of heat exhaustion in the back of her pick-up truck outside Costco in Richmond, before she dumped them in an Abbotsford ditch and then concocted a story about them being stolen from her truck at a Langley dog park.
The dog owners in question — one of whom, Paul Grant, adopted from the Richmond Animal Protection Society — broke into applause as Paulsen was led from the Surrey courtroom in handcuffs Wednesday.
At South Arm Park on Thursday morning, local dog owners gave their thoughts on the sentencing for the Delta-based former dog walker.
“I think she got what she deserved,” said Vivian Lau, who was with her two-year-old golden retriever Haley.
“She was so dishonest with all the lying and stuff, and I don’t think that helped her at all. Dogs are members of the family.”
The owner of terrier-cross Hunter, who didn’t want to give his name, said the absence of any kind of apology from Paulsen possibly made the situation even worse.
Another owner, Melissa Franco, said on the News’ Facebook page, she was, “surprised but very happy she even got jail time, because Canadian laws for this sort of thing are inadequate.”
In May of 2014, Paulsen, a Delta resident, tearfully told her clients, reporters, and police that six dogs had vanished from the back of her truck at a Langley off-leash dog park.
Paulsen claimed she had been playing with the dogs there for several hours, before they were stolen while she went to the washroom.
Her story unravelled in less than a week. Paulsen admitted to a missing pet investigator and to RCMP that the dogs had died in the back of her truck after she left them unattended for about 40 minutes while she went shopping at a Richmond Costco.
She had panicked, dumped the dogs’ bodies in an Abbotsford ditch, and made up the story about the alleged theft.
On Wednesday, Judge James Jardine ruled that Paulsen was deserving of prison time.
He acknowledged that Paulsen did not mean to kill any of the dogs – one of the six, Salty, was her own pet – but she had previously been seen leaving the dogs in the back of her truck, and had been warned by several people.
He noted she had been in emotional turmoil prior to the incident.
Jardine called her actions distracted, thoughtless negligence, and “very self-centered.”
“Her post-offence conduct was motivated by fear, shame, and panic,” he said.
Guilt should have caused her to check her behaviour, but instead she repeated her story many times.
— Files from Matthew Claxton/LangleyAdvance
