‘Arrogant’ woman gets 3 years for dog abuse

A judge rejected a woman’s defense that she was too mentally ill to realize the consequences of her neglect, calling her “too arrogant and too proud to say she needed help” in the worst case of animal abuse he’d ever seen.

“She’s off gallivanting when these dogs are dying. It’s really a horrible case,” Anne Arundel County Judge Paul A. Hackner said in sentencing Kelly Lynn Schreck.

According to The Sun, Schreck’s attorneys argued that she struggled to care for her growing collection of Great Danes amid increasing marital problems. She’d sought help at a Baltimore psychiatric hospital after suffering two miscarriages and being served with divorce papers in jail.

Animal control officers who went to her Glen Burnie home found five dead dogs and four others starving in cages.

“She needs to be in her own cage for a period of time,” prosecutor Kimberly DiPietro said. “At least she’ll know she’ll get fed.”

Hackner sentenced Schreck, 28, to three years in prison and three years’ probation.