CONVICTED (2022) | professional dog walker Christine Anne Carpenter, born c. 1966, of Northfield Road, Ringwood BH24 1SS – killed two of her clients’ dogs by leaving them in her car on one of the hottest days of the year.

Carpenter, who traded under the name Chris’ Absolute Pets, left 11-year-old King Charles Cavalier Poppy and spaniel cross Pixie, 5, in the boot of her car, days after the Met Office had issued its first ever extreme heat weather warning in summer 2021.

The animals were dead “within minutes”, as temperatures reached 29C outside.

On later examination by a vet, the dogs’ internal temperatures were found to be the maximum the thermometer could reach.

Their owners, company director Roy Narbey and wife Kate, were left “devastated” by their deaths after leaving them in the care of someone they considered a friend.

Carpenter was then investigated and prosecuted by the RSPCA.

Magistrates heard she took a group of dogs, including her own, out during the middle of the afternoon in Ringwood.

It was the third day of the Met Office’s unprecedented extreme heat warning across the south-west, as the country was gripped in a blistering heatwave.

The day before the dog walk was the hottest day of 2021, with the mercury hitting 32.2C at Heathrow airport.

The court heard Carpenter picked up the dogs at about 12.30pm from the Narbeys’ home in Ringwood.

She had her own rescue dog in her car and drove to the nearby Kingston Great Common nature reserve, where there is a stream they could swim in.

Mrs Narbey told Carpenter to take the dogs for just a “half-hour quick walk” because it was so hot. In fact, she offered Carpenter a drink but she declined as she was “worried about leaving the dogs in the car”.

However, the court heard Mrs Narbey became concerned when Carpenter still had not returned her dogs by 5.30pm.

She tried calling but had no reply so texted the dog walker asking where she was.

When Mrs Narbey still hadn’t heard by 6.15pm she was “getting worried”.

She called again, and this time Carpenter picked up the phone and asked “were you worried about me?”.

The court prosecutor said: “Things didn’t sound or feel right [to Mrs Narbey]. Her voice was a bit shaky so she asked what’s wrong.

“She said ‘I’m panicking because I can’t wake the girls up’.

“At that point Mrs Narbey screamed at her and said you need to get to the vets.”

But the court heard within minutes of the dogs arriving shortly afterwards at the vets, Carpenter was told the dogs were “gone”.

She told the vet “I only left them for a minute, I love them like they are my own”.

The prosecutor said both dogs were “noticeably warm to the touch” and had a temperature of almost 43C – compared with an ordinary level of 38-39C – even 25 minutes after they were brought to the vets.

The court heard the true reading was likely even higher, as this was the maximum temperature the thermometer could record.

Carpenter was interviewed by police two days after. She said she took the dogs for a walk and they went in the water before getting back into her car and letting them out in her garden.

She said she put Poppy and Pixie in her car with the windows open, then went back inside to get her phone when she felt unwell and had a wash.
She then locked the house and went outside, but went back inside to grab a shopping back as she was planning to go to the supermarket.

The prosecutor said: “She opened the boot. The dogs were lying down and not moving.

“She didn’t know how long the dogs were in the car, she said it felt like minutes.

“She did acknowledge there were exceptional temperatures.

“She accepted that ultimately her actions had caused the dogs to die.”

The court heard a veterinary expert reviewed the case and said the dogs died of “heat stress, having been exposed to an environment of high temperature”.

Michael Stocken, defending, said Carpenter “immediately ceased her business” and was “traumatised as a result of her negligible conduct”.

Carpenter pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the animals and failing in her duty to ensure welfare.

Sentencing: 18 weeks’ imprisonment. Disqualified from owning any animal for eight years.

Daily Mail
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