ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Mark Condon was in the basement of his centre-city home one morning last August when he saw something rush by the window.
Fifteen minutes later he heard barking on the other side of his house and went outside to check what was going on. Two dogs he had never seen before were in his neighbour's yard, he said, jumping up at a black and white cat that was standing on a fence post.
Condon didn't know what kind of dogs they were, but had a feeling the situation might not end well, so he went inside and called the SPCA. When he got no answer, he called the police.
"It was pretty savage," Condon testified in provincial court Friday about the dogs' barking.
Receiving no answer from the RNC, either, Condon went back outside and found the dogs were on his side of the fence, still jumping and barking at the cat. Condon yelled at the dogs, but they paid him no attention.
Condon went back and forth from outside his home to inside, calling a friend, the City of St. John's and the RNC again, this time getting an answer. He made a report and was told police were on their way.
"I went back out and by that time they had the cat on the ground," Condon said. "They were mauling the cat. I didn't want to look at it, so I went back in and waited a bit, then went back out. The dogs were leaving."
The cat - whose name was Meshroudi - was dead. He was mostly an indoor cat, his owner, Sabreen Mowlaii, testified, but would often go outside and stay near her front steps. He was outside earlier that morning, as Mowlaii was getting ready for work.
Mowlaii said she heard a noise outside her home and went out and saw two dogs, stocky and muscular with big heads, running around free in the cul-de-sac. She tried to find Meshroudi, but he had disappeared. On the verge of being late for work, she got in her car and beeped the horn at the dogs before lowering a window and yelling at them, trying to get them to leave the property, Mowlaii said.
She was at work a couple of hours later when she received a call from her neighbour saying Meshroudi had been killed. Picking him up from the city's Humane Services office, she noticed his body had abrasions and blood on it, and his claws were extended, Mowlaii said.
"They said he was probably trying to defend himself at the last minute when they killed him," Mowlaii told the court.
Mowlaii and Condon, along with RNC Const. Justin Day, testified for the Crown at the trial of 40-year-old Crystal Smith, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges under the province's Animal Health and Protection Act: one count each of unlawfully allowing a companion animal to cause a hazard, and failng to keep a dog tethered or penned. These charges are liability-related and not criminal.
Smith was emotional as she took the stand as the only witness for the defence, telling the court the dogs in question were hers: Luna, an Amstaff-Boston terrier mix, and Keiko, an Amstaff-bulldog mix.
Smith said she had been ill and hadn't planned on taking her dogs for a walk that morning until they begged, so she decided to take them to the area of the tennis courts on Stamps Lane. Once there, Smith said, she shut the gate and let the dogs off their leashes to run around.
"I took my phone out to respond to a text and when I looked up, they were gone," Smith testified.
She said she panicked, knowing the Farmers’ Market was nearby, and was worried about how her dogs would react to people without her around.
Smith said she noticed a "gaping hole" in the fence that had not been there when she had taken her dogs to the tennis courts days earlier. She said she ran out through the hole, screaming her dogs' names and trying to find them, calling a friend to come help and then calling Humane Services. She also used her phone to post notices on her Facebook page and a number of lost-pet pages about the missing dogs.
"I ran until it was hard to breathe, but I couldn't find them," Smith said.
Humane Services called Smith back to tell her the dogs had been located on Wishingwell Place, where they had gotten hold of a cat.
"I panicked. Oh my God, they got hold of a cat. Poor cat. Poor owner," Smith said on the stand through tears. "I was mortified when I found out they had killed a cat and after just losing one of my dogs, I know the pain. If they had been in my care, this would not have happened."
Smith arrived at Wishingwell Place, where police were attempting to corral the dogs. Luna and Keiko had scratches on them that weren't consistent with a cat, Smith said, and she treated them herself when she took the dogs home.
Smith's lawyer, Alexandra Kindervater, argued for an acquittal, saying no one had seen how the cat had gotten down from the fence post, and pointing out neither the cat nor the dogs had been tethered.
"Our submission is (Smith) made every effort to locate the dogs and took reasonable efforts to have them penned," Kindervater said. "By all accounts, this was an unfortunate accident and all animals were injured."
Prosecutor Robin Singleton acknowledged Smith had made extensive efforts to locate the dogs once they escaped, but said the tennis courts weren't in an area where dog owners are allowed to let their animals off-leash. Smith's own testimony proves the elements of the charges, Singleton said, adding it didn't matter whether or not the cat had been tethered.
"No matter how the cat came off that fence, the dogs killed the cat," Singleton said. "Although (Smith) didn't intend for it to happen and she's sorry about it, she clearly didn't take the proper steps to ensure the area was secure."
Judge Lori Marshall will return with her verdict May 29.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
