Unlicenced Puppy Seller Convicted by Court

An Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer of the New Brunswick SPCA received infor­ma­tion that Ms. Nadia Dubé of Edmund­ston was sell­ing pup­pies on Face­book with­out hav­ing a Pet Estab­lish­ment Licence on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2023. 

“All dog breed­ers in New Brunswick must have a valid Pet Estab­lish­ment License. This annu­al license ensures that dogs are born and raised in a safe and healthy envi­ron­ment and that Cana­di­an Vet­eri­nar­i­an Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion ken­nel stan­dards are fol­lowed. Every Pet Estab­lish­ment that breeds and sells dogs, board­ing ken­nels for dogs, pet stores, and ani­mal shel­ters receive their license to oper­ate after their facil­i­ty has passed an annu­al inspec­tion by New Brunswick SPCA”, said Tony Porter, Chief Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer, NBSPCA

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer (APO) vis­it­ed Ms. Dubé’s home and not­ed a foul odour of urine and feces. The Offi­cer also noticed that her two dogs were skin­ny, and their ribs, back­bone, and hips were pro­trud­ing and could be felt. 

A total of four dogs were seized and the APOs took them to a vet­eri­nar­i­an for an assess­ment. The vet­eri­nar­i­an gave the dogs a body score of 1−2÷9 and report­ed that they were under­weight, had long nails, fleas, and were filthy. One dog was ema­ci­at­ed from long-term mal­nour­ish­ment and neglect. 

All seized dogs were tak­en to an ani­mal shel­ter in the sur­round­ing area. At the shel­ter, they were thor­ough­ly cleaned and put on a reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gram. With­in a cou­ple of weeks, the dogs were look­ing ener­getic and cheer­ful and had gained weight due to the nutri­tious and healthy diet pro­vid­ed. They were placed for adop­tion by the ani­mal shel­ter and even­tu­al­ly found their new for­ev­er home. 

Ms. Nadia Dubé was charged under the SPCA Act of NB and Crim­i­nal Code for fail­ing to pro­vide food, oper­at­ing a Pet Estab­lish­ment with­out a Licence, and fail­ing to pro­duce ani­mals for Inspec­tion upon Demand. On Sep­tem­ber 19, 2023, she was con­vict­ed by Edmund­ston Court and fined $1030. Ms. Dubé was also pro­hib­it­ed from pos­sess­ing dogs for a peri­od of three years. 

About the New Brunswick SPCA

Found­ed in 1881, New Brunswick SPCA (NBSC­PA) is the only province-wide orga­ni­za­tion man­dat­ed to enforce ani­mal pro­tec­tion laws. A ded­i­cat­ed team of 15 Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Offi­cers is vest­ed with the author­i­ty under the SPCA Act of New Brunswick to inves­ti­gate and, if nec­es­sary, lay charges, seize ani­mals, or rec­om­mend court orders to per­sons sus­pect­ed of abuse and cru­el­ty to animals. 

The NBSP­CA is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty that exists to pro­vide province-wide lead­er­ship in the humane treat­ment of ani­mals. We enforce rel­e­vant leg­is­la­tion, ensure shel­ter for neglect­ed or abused domes­ti­cat­ed ani­mals and agri­cul­tur­al ani­mals, and pro­vide pub­lic edu­ca­tion and advo­ca­cy to empow­er New Brunswick­ers to help ani­mals live long and healthy lives. 

To learn more vis­it www​.nbsp​ca​.ca