A 76-year-old businessman, Lim Soo Seng, has been fined the maximum S$10,000 under the Animals and Birds Act for failing to seek timely treatment for his pet dog, which appeared to have been starved to death over several months.

This is the first time the maximum fine has been imposed by the court for animal cruelty.

Lim was convicted of “unreasonably omitting” to bring his female cross-breed dog to the vet for treatment in May last year.

This case is particularly shocking owing to the graphic photo of the gravely emaciated dog and the murky circumstances surrounding its death.

It was reported in Today that the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) investigations showed Lim had adopted the dog from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) about seven years ago when it was one year old.

Lim, who has other pet dogs, said he had instructed his domestic helper to feed the dog twice a day.

Lim’s domestic helper, however, was only employed about a year ago.

The helper claimed that she fed the dog with dry food. A month before the dog died, she had told her employer that the dog was becoming very thin.

But Lim did not bring the dog to the vet, so the helper informed Lim's wife when the dog stopped eating on May 16 last year.

Lim’s wife said she would ask Lim to bring the dog to the vet the next day.

The dog died on May 17.

Court documents stated that the dog appeared “to have been chronically starved or malnourished, possibly for months”.

The post-mortem found that the dog had multi-organ dysfunction.

Lim could have been jailed for one year on top of his fine.

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