A 25-year-old man has been sentenced to four months in prison and banned from owning animals for life after pleading guilty to charges of animal cruelty and obstructing an authorised officer who was carrying out an animal welfare check.
Jamie Kavanagh, with an address at Raheenleigh, Myshall, Co Carlow, also pleaded guilty to charges of failing to protect animals and failing to provide animals with adequate food and drink.
He has to pay €600 to cover the legal costs of the ISPCA.
Kavanagh is appealing the sentence.
The court heard that Kavanagh's father James and his mother Jennifer had previously been banned from owning dogs for life and for 15 years respectively.
James Kavanagh Senior was also banned from owning horses for life.
Both had pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges on the same family property in February 2019.
Kavanagh's aunt, his father's sister, 58-year-old Sheila Kavanagh, also pleaded guilty to charges of animal cruelty, as well as failing to protect an animal or adequately feed them.
She was given a four-month suspended sentence, suspended for two years, a €1,000 fine and she had to pay €600 to the ISPCA.
Sheila Kavanagh was also disqualified from owning any animals for life, except for a small dog currently in her care.
ISPCA Senior Inspector Fiona Conlon told Carlow District Court that she visited the property in Ranheenleigh, Myshall in Co Carlow on 28 July 2023 in response to concerns that had been raised about dog welfare and dog breeding.
On inspection of the property, Ms Conlon said that she found a severely underweight and pregnant Golden Retriever that was "barely able to stand".
"All I could see was her spine, her hips and her ribs and she was struggling to stand up.
"There was no bedding, there was a tiny bit of dirty water and no food to be seen and in the outside area there was a lot of faeces."
She said the second dog that she found was another Golden Retreiver who she described as extremely nervous" and "also very underweight".
Ms Conlon also found a Collie who was "very nervous", and two more Golden Retrievers where one again was described as "very nervous".
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She said that when she first met Jamie Kavanagh she introduced herself, showed him her ID and explained the reason for the visit.
"He was not very happy to see me and made it clear, he basically told me to f**k off," Ms Conlon told the court.
She said that when she asked him who owned the dogs he said "different people own different dogs".
The court heard that the welfare team removed the first two Golden Retrievers but an attempt to remove the Collie was stopped by Jamie Kavanagh, who Ms Conlon said "grabbed the dog off the dog warden".
Sheila Kavanagh said that she owned the dogs that had been removed, the court was also told.
Ms Conlon said that Sheila Kavanagh told her one of the dogs "couldn't be pregnant" and "if it was pregnant it must have gotten out out and a Collie had gotten at it".
"Needless to say it wasn't Collie pups that were born to this dog, it was Golden Retriever pups.
"So obviously a male Golden Retriever was somehow introduced," Ms Conlon added.
Defence solicitor Jill Griffen told the court that Sheila Kavanagh had asked her nephew Jamie Kavanagh to look after the dogs after she fell and hurt her knee.
Ms Griffen said that Jamie Kavanagh now accepted that he should not have taken that on this responsibility, on top of taking care of his own dogs and long work days as an air conditioning and refrigeration engineer.
Ms Griffen also apologised to Ms Conlon on behalf of her client.
Judge Geraldine Carthy said that there was "no doubt that there was a clear disregard for both animals welfare".
In Jamie Kavanagh's case, she said the aggravating factors were his non-cooperation with Inspector Conlon, the severity of his neglect of both dogs, and "the fact that a dog warden was walking to a kennel with one dog, that was plucked from him by Jamie Kavanagh and put into a house where Inspector Conlon could not retrieve that dog".
The judge said the mitigating factors were his guilty plea, that character references were provided, and the apology offered to Ms Conlon.
However, Judge Carthy added that she was "not completely satisfied with the remorse of Jamie Kavanagh".
She said she was satisfied that a custodial sentence was merited and "disqualified him for a lifetime of owning all animals including any animals partly in his care".
He is appealing his sentence on a bond of €500 and had to pay €600 to cover the costs of the ISPCA.
