A 63-year-old craftworker has been given a four-month suspended jail sentence and been banned from keeping dogs for life after pleading guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to almost 70 dogs she kept in substandard conditions in Co Waterford.
Sandra Hennessy, a knitwear and jewellery maker, pleaded guilty to a total of 29 counts animal welfare offences including over 20 counts of causing or permitting unnecessary suffering to the dogs under her care.
Hennessy admitted the offences at two addresses at Dunmoon North, Tallow, Co Waterford and Dyrick, Ballinamult, Co Waterford, on various dates between July 23rd, 2024, and February 28th, 2025, when she appeared at Lismore District Court sitting in Dungarvan on Friday.
NSPCA senior animal welfare inspector Alice Leahy said she called to a rented property at Ballinamult on July 23rd 2024 where she found 69 dogs, mainly terriers, most of whom were housed in dog crates in a shed with poor lighting and poor bedding in generally substandard conditions.
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She also found more than 20 dogs in Hennessy’s house. These again were mainly terriers. They were in every room and were being kept in poor light with a strong smell of ammonia from dog urine, and many of the dogs had poor body weight, ear and eye infections and flea infestation.
Hennessy had told her she had one elderly sick dog in the house, a lurcher named Lachlan, and she found him lying on a couch wrapped in a pink blanket. When she removed the blanket, she found the dog had three female sanitary pads on his shoulder, ribs and hip bones.
When she removed the sanitary pads, she found Lachlan’s skin was ulcerated, with no flesh between skin and the bone and, when she turned him over to examine his other side, she found similar ulcerated wounds on his shoulder, ribs and hip with no palpable flesh at the wounds.
Ms Leahy gave Lachlan a body condition score of 0/5 and although Hennessy was giving him a painkiller, Rheumocam, she believed the dog was suffering hugely so she removed him immediately and a vet euthanised him later that day after concluding he could not recover.
She returned on July 30th, when Hennessy willingly surrendered 34 dogs which were handed over to the dog rehoming and rescue charity Dogs Trust and again on August 29th when a further 21 dogs were handed over.
She said Hennessy told her she was due to be evicted from the rented property, and it took her several months to track her down at a new address in Tallow. When she visited there, she again found dogs housed in stacked crates in a shed in substandard conditions.
Hennessy had failed to get her bitches neutered and they had given birth to pups since her last visit in August, so she removed seven pups before she served Hennessy with an Animal Health and Welfare Notice on December 18th requiring her to reduce the number of dogs to ten.
She carried out another inspection on February 20th, 2025, to discover 10 dogs in the shed but she believed that Hennessy, who wasn’t present at the time, was still keeping other dogs and when she returned on February 28th, Hennessy showed her another seven dogs that she on the property.
Cross-examined by defence barrister, Sarah Jane Comerford BL, Ms Lacey agreed Hennessy was co-operative and was not operating a puppy farm. She had begun hoarding dogs but failed to get them neutered and ended with up with 69 dogs after several bitches gave birth to litters of pups.
Ms Comerford pleaded for leniency, pointing out her client had no previous convictions and had not been in a great place mentally at the time and indeed was living in similarly poor conditions herself but she had since taken steps to improve the conditions for the ten dogs still in her care.
However, Judge John O’Leary said it was a very serious case, and he noted that prosecution barrister, Brian Kearney BL for the Minister for Agriculture had sought an order under Section 58 of the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 prohibiting Hennessy from owning dogs again.
He sentenced Hennessy to four months in prison on 22 counts and suspended the prison terms but granted the Section 58 disqualification order for life, prohibiting her from every owning or keeping dogs again and ordered the immediate removal of the remaining ten dogs from her care.
