A WEST Devon farmer who has been banned from keeping cattle was found with 13 sheepdogs in squalid conditions on his Meldon smallholding, Exeter Crown Court last week heard.

Neighbours tipped off animal welfare authorities that the collies were shivering in an open pen, where they were caked in mud and filth.

The court heard the dogs were seen fighting over the rotting remains of a dead pig which had been thrown into their wire enclosure to feed them.

There was nobody on site to look after them at the isolated and exposed strip of land at Meldon — the only form of shelter was an old corrugated iron pig arc.

Owner Leon Smith, aged 62, had already been banned from keeping cattle and sheep twice after previous animal welfare offences, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Smith, of Castleford House, Okehampton, admitted failing to provide a suitable environment for 13 collie dogs on February 14, 2011, and nine on February 16.

He also admitted six offences of failing to dispose of pig remains and allowing them to be exposed to wild animals.

Judge Barry Cotter, QC, deferred sentence on all matters until November to give Smith the opportunity to improve conditions for the dogs and avoid a disqualification from keeping them in the future.

The judge told him: 'Standards in relation to animal welfare vary. Some people treat their dogs better than humans but what we are concerned with here is something utterly different.

'We are concerned with minimum basic standards and these are immutable and unchanging. That is what you are required to provide.

'Anyone sitting in my position is bound to have grave concerns about your attitude generally to animal welfare and your understanding of their basic needs.

'The defence may well say that these dogs were in your view in good health and had food, but you pleaded guilty because there was not an adequate environment for them faced with bad weather.

'That will simply not amount to an adequate excuse in the future, as it does not today.

'I am going to defer sentence on that, and the purpose of that is for you to establish before me the extent to which you are able to keep these dogs in adequate conditions and with suitable support for their welfare.'

Sean Brunton, prosecuting, said Naomi Osborne from Devon County Council visited the site on February 14, 2011, after a complaint from residents at Meldon and found a large number of dogs in 'pretty squalid' conditions.

'They were being kept in and around pig arcs with limited access to them and there were rugs covering three large pig carcasses which were bloated and partially decomposed," said Mr Brunton.

'She noticed 13 dogs in one enclosure of varying ages and sizes.

'They were all plastered in mud and they had nowhere dry to stand.

'They were sheltering from the wind and the rain against a hedge and had no access to shelter.

'She saw another pig carcass inside the enclosure being eaten by the dogs.'

Mr Brunton said the official returned with colleagues two days later and the situation was much the same, with a large number of dogs in a very limited space.

He said: 'The defendant was interviewed and said he kept the dogs in good conditions but things had got on top of him because of the bad weather.'

Mr Brunton said Smith was convicted in 1998 of failing to dispose of animal byproducts and in 1999 of welfare offences, leading to a five-year ban from keeping sheep and cattle.

He was convicted of both offences again in 2008 and banned for a second time from keeping sheep and cattle for a further five years, a prohibition which remains in force.

Kelly Scrivener, defending, said Smith was determined to provide good conditions for his dogs and was keen for the RSPCA to take part in any future monitoring.