A couple whose dogs were found covered in horrendous skin sores have been banned from keeping animals for ten years.

Norman Ford and Diane Brown, both unemployed from Disley, Cheshire, failed to seek treatment for their two dogs’ chronic condition, for four years.

Ford, 60 and Brown, 49, claimed they couldn’t afford vets bills and so left German Shepherd collie cross, Satan, and lurcher cross, Toby - both 16 - to suffer. Satan was found virtually bald with a green discharge oozing from his eyes when the case finally came to light.

The two defendants both admitted two offences of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal when they appeared before Macclesfield Magistrates.

In addition to the ban, Ford, who owned the dogs, was sentenced to 200 hours community punishment, and ordered to pay £750 compensation to the RSPCA for vets bills and lodgings for them.

His partner, Brown, was ordered to pay £350 compensation, and sentenced to 80 hours community punishment.

An order was also made confiscating Satan and Toby so that they could be given a new home.

Andrew Meachin, prosecuting, said that on August 15, last year, an RSPCA inspector visited the defendants following a tip off, and found the dogs to be in a poor state of health.