30-year-old Sabrina Sim Xin Huey, a dog trainer, was fined $8,000 on 1 June after leaving two dogs under her care in her car boot and going home, causing their deaths.
She had pleaded guilty on 5 May to a charge under the Animals and Birds Act.
Sim was distracted by a social media post and left the two dogs in the boot of her car and went home, only realizing what she had done about 1.5 hours later.
She then ran to her car and found the two French bulldogs unresponsive, and took them to a vet nearby, but they were already dead.
She was fined for the offence on one of the dogs, failing to take reasonable steps to make sure it was not confined in a manner that subjected it to unnecessary pain and suffering, with another charge involving the other dog being considered during her sentencing.
Sim was also disqualified from carrying out any animal-related business and from being in charge of animals while working with any animal-related businesses for 6 months.
What happened?
The owner of the deceased dogs hired Sim sometime in January 2020, who was a dog trainer for about 6 years then.
They hired her to engage their dog, Chocoby for 10 sessions, and when their other dog Hunniby arrived in Singapore, she hired Sim to train it as well.
The training would incorporate boarding and training services where the dogs stayed with Sim for the entirety of the training.
On 25 August 2020, Sim placed both of the dogs in her hatchback’s open boot area and drove them to an undisclosed location for training, with began at 12.30 pm to 1.45 pm.
She then placed both dogs in her car boot with the air con on and drove home.
She reached home at about 2.30 pm and parked her car in a spot at an open carpark without shelter, with the windows wound up and the engine and aircon all switched off.
She was distracted by a social media post about a former customer’s dog being bitten by another dog and forgot to remove the dogs from the car.
The closed the car door and went up to her home, with both dogs still in the car boot.
At about 4 pm, she realised that she had left the dogs in her car and immediately ran to her car to get the dogs, who were at this point unresponsive.
She then took them to a nearby vet where they were already dead by then, and tissue samples from Chocoby were then sent for a post mortem.
The post mortem report stated that the dog was in a stressful state before its death, as indicated by an increased red blood cell count.
The cause of death was diagnosed as heat stress in the medical summary.