http://www.shropshirestar.com/show_article.php?aID=41978
Dog ban as couple failed to seek help
By SUE AUSTIN
A Shropshire couple have been banned from keeping a dog for two years after they let their elderly dog, which was suffering from severe dental decay and a six-inch tumour, become emaciated.
Oswestry magistrates said Mark and Nicola Edge, of Ellesmere, let their pet — a 13-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Rosie — suffer because they could not bear the thought of her being put down.
Rosie was taken to the vets by an RSPCA inspector after collapsing in the street.
Yesterday Mark Lionel Edge, 35, and Nicola Jayne Edge, 32, of Berwyn View, were found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to the dog by failing to provide proper and necessary veterinary care. They were also each ordered to pay £1,000 towards court costs.
They had both denied the charge saying Rosie had been eating and acting normally the morning she died. But magistrates said photographs taken just before Rosie was put to sleep showed the dog must have been suffering.
The Edges, who had taken Rosie to the vet regularly until 2004, said she had been thin, but had been eating normally and had still been going out for walks.
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in tonight’s Shropshire Star
A picture of Rosie