DIGBY — The trial of a Digby County couple charged with selling sick and dirty puppies ended Tuesday with one of the defendants shouting "It’s a setup" as she left the courthouse.
An obviously angry Gail Ruth Benoit, 39, was unable to say much more than "The truth will be known" as she walked with her husband, Dana Bailey, to their car while uttering threats and shouting disparaging remarks.
Previously seen driving their dogs around the province in a late-model minivan, the couple sped away from the Digby courthouse Tuesday in a white Pontiac Grand Am.
Before slamming her car door, Ms. Benoit said they still operate their puppy-peddling business Puppies R’ Us.
Mr. Bailey jumped in at that point and said the province of Nova Scotia supports them by allowing them to maintain their business as a retail puppy-selling and delivery service.
"If they didn’t want me selling dogs and if I was so cruel, they would have my licence gone," he said of the Registry of Joint Stock Companies.
Puppies R’ Us was registered as a business in 2006, according to a government website.
Ms. Benoit is accused of obstructing a peace officer who was performing her duty, assaulting a peace officer and cruelty to animals. Charges were laid under both the Criminal Code and the Animal Cruelty Prevention Act.
Mr. Bailey, 46, is also charged with animal cruelty.
Judge Jean Louis Batiot will render his decision Jan. 29 in Digby provincial court.
The charges stem from the October 2007 seizure of 10 puppies from the couple’s Roxville home.
RCMP officers and SPCA special constables armed with a search warrant arrived when Ms. Benoit was home alone with the animals. She was arrested, removed from her blue bungalow and placed in the back seat of a police car where she rocked back and forth wildly and screamed obscenities as the dogs were rounded up.
Mr. Bailey arrived at the Digby RCMP detachment a few minutes later, demanding that his wife be released and shouting "She’s had enough."
In courtroom testimony Tuesday, Donna Nugent of Westville, Pictou County, said she contacted Ms. Benoit last fall looking for a dog. She said Ms. Benoit would not allow her to come to her home to see the pups.
"She wanted to meet me in a parking lot," Ms. Nugent said. "I knew right then there was something wrong."
Eventually she and a friend did meet Ms. Benoit in a parking lot in Elmsdale.
Defence lawyer Michael Power asked if a television news team was there too.
"Maybe," Ms. Nugent said.
Mr. Power read part of an email Ms. Nugent wrote on Oct. 27, 2007, which read in part: "She’s in the process of being shut down. . . . A friend and I set Gail up."
"My friend was wired up with a mike," read part of another document Mr. Power referred to in court.
"You and your friend set Gail Benoit up," Mr. Power said.
"She was selling sick dogs," Ms. Nugent said. "They were dying."
Someone had to speak up for the dogs, she said.
Ms. Nugent said she is familiar with a Facebook site dedicated to stopping Ms. Benoit from selling dogs. Ms. Nugent told the court she even has her own Facebook site dedicated to the eradication of puppy mills.
Ms. Nugent is a lifelong dog owner and determined that the two dogs she saw that day in the Elmsdale parking lot were sick.
"There were mites in their ears. They had fleas," she told the court.
One of the pups groaned when it was picked up, she said
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