A man who was living with 39 dogs in his country Western Australian home, described in court as being "thick with dirt and faeces", will be allowed to own dogs again despite being fined thousands of dollars for animal cruelty offences.
William Mangles Carlyle Moyes, 60, had been running a puppy farming operation from his Bridgetown property from where he was selling labrador-poodle crossbreeds, known as labradoodles.
He was fined $112,000 on Wednesday in the Bunbury Magistrates Court for gross neglect of the animals.
The court was told reports of animal cruelty as early as August 2021 at Moyes' home came from a member of the public who refused to pay $5,000 for a puppy because of its poor living conditions, and a cleaner who described the property as being "thick with dirt and faeces".
When the RSPCA inspector visited the property in January last year, prosecutor Ian Weldon said the smell of urine and faeces in the home made her "eyes burn, nose hurt and caused her to gag involuntarily".
Mr Weldon said the inspector found lethargic dogs, dogs fighting, puppies hiding in wet pools of urine, no food and water, and a puppy drinking out of an open sewerage pipe.
The court heard that the RSPCA seized the dogs and later found many to have dirty, matted coats and a range of infections, including one with a parasitic infection from being around faeces.
In a move labelled "extraordinary" by Magistrate Benjamin Tyers, Moyes' defence lawyer presented several reference letters to the court that talked about the man's love of animals, including one from a WA vet.
Two dogs could return home
Following his conviction, Moyes will not be able to breed any animals for 40 years.
But Magistrate Tyers stopped short of banning him from owning dogs in the future.
He indicated two of the confiscated dogs could be returned to Moyes' care if the RSPCA allowed it, a move the animal welfare group suggested could be in the best interest of the dogs if they could not find a home.
"He ought to be very happy because when I came in today I had a very different view and I'm giving him the benefit of having a dog," Magistrate Tyers said.
The dogs would need to be sterilised and registered to Moyes' name.
Magistrate Tyers accepted that Moyes had a physical disability, which made it hard to care for the dogs, but said he should have known better.
"You failed them miserably," Magistrate Tyers said
"[The care was] grossly short of what is appropriate for proper care and that's on Mr Moyes."
Moyes was fined $112,000, with more than half of the money suspended.
'We are their voice'
Speaking outside court, Holly Membrey remembered the day she drove three hours from Perth to pick up her brand new puppy from the Bridgetown property.
"It was supposed to be an exciting moment having my first dog, but picking the puppy up from squalid conditions that looked like someone owned a junkyard was pretty upsetting," she said
"[We were given] a puppy that smelled really bad and was terrified.
"You wouldn't want to not take the dog, considering the conditions it was in."
Mrs Membrey is among those who also reported Moyes, and travelled to the Bunbury court on Wednesday to see the case through.
"This is probably one of the best decisions I have made, to go with my gut feeling of reporting someone for doing the wrong thing, and I wanted to do it for my dog's sake and for the sake of any other animal," she said.
"We are their voice and we do care for them."
Puppy farming laws on the way
RSPCA WA South West inspector Genna Haines said the case was a "prime" example of backyard breeding that she hoped the state government's puppy farming laws would stamp out.
Laws to crack down on puppy farming passed WA parliament in late 2021 but were yet to be fully implemented.
"We're really supportive of that legislation when it comes into effect," Ms Haines said.
"Hopefully it's going to prevent operations like this, and animals living in conditions like this, and people cashing in on backyard breeding."
She said puppy farming and puppy breeding had gone unregulated for "too long".
"It has been a free-for-all and people have been allowed to cash in on breeding readily without being responsible for the conditions that they're keeping animals in," Ms Haines said.
At the centre of the reforms was a centralised registration system for dogs and cats in WA, which a state government spokesman said was still in the works.
"This new online system will merge all of the registers of dogs and cats currently managed by each of the state's 137 local governments into one central register," the spokesperson said.
"The WA government has released a request for tender for the installation of the central registration system."
