No jail for SA man who let dogs starve

A man who let a dog he was paid to look after starve to death while locking another in a laundry has avoided jail in South Australia.

Regan Howe, 61, had been paid by their owner to feed the dogs at Mt Gambier but let a nine-year-old Staffordshire terrier-cross named Pig die of hunger.

There was no food or water in the backyard where the pup's emaciated body was found last July.

Animal welfare inspectors also rescued a three-year-old American bulldog, named Opie, from a laundry filled with urine and faeces. The dog was anaemic, extremely underweight and flea-ridden.

Howe pleaded guilty in Mount Gambier Magistrates Court to the aggravated ill-treatment of an animal causing death and the ill-treatment of the surviving dog.

Magistrate Theresa Anderson on Tuesday sentenced him to a jail term of four months and one week but this was suspended, with Howe entering into a 12-month good behaviour bond.

He must also pay the RSPCA in South Australia $569.15 in legal and vet costs.

"Leaving one dog to starve and freeze to death in a backyard and another to starve, locked up in a filthy room, betrayed these animals and their owner, who trusted that they were being cared for properly in her absence," RSPCA chief inspector Andrea Lewis said.