A FORMER nurse who turned her small house into a squalid "puppy factory" has refused to give the 65 animals seized from her the chance of loving new homes, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Conditions at the house in Shelley Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth, shocked RSPCA officials when they went in to remove the animals in March 2006.

Most of the dogs were being kept in cramped, filthy crates stacked up in her house and shed, with no bedding or access to clean drinking water. Levels of ammonia from the animals' urine were so high that a vet described the atmosphere as "intolerable".

This week owner Johanna Price, 71, was convicted of 15 charges of animal cruelty and one of breeding dogs without a licence by Dorset magistrates.

She has turned down requests to sign over the animals to the RSPCA, which would have allowed the charity to find new homes.

Instead, they have languished in care for the last 18 months, costing the charity many thousands of pounds in board and veterinary treatment. Thirty dogs are still in this area, and the rest are at homes in Surrey and Sussex.

Price is due to be sentenced on December 4, when magistrates are likely to make a confiscation order and ban her from keeping animals for the rest of her life.

Jo Barr from the RSPCA said: "We have repeatedly asked for the animals to be signed over. In this case, she absolutely won't. Until she is sentenced, we can't do anything in terms of rehoming the animals."

The court heard that 59 dogs, six birds and a cat were removed from the house. One of the dogs, a pregnant Yorkshire terrier, had an open wound where its tail had been completely wrenched out of its base. It had received no veterinary attention and later had to be put down.

Among other animals removed from the house were dogs with eye conditions, a Jack Russell terrier suffering from dehydration, a dachshund with dental problems and a parrot that had been plucking out its own feathers because of pain and mental distress.

Price sold her puppies through the Ad Trader for £300 each, bringing them to the door of the two-bedromed semi when customers called. One witnessed her dangling a dog by its paw and reported her to the police.

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood said: "This is one of the most horrific cases the RSPCA has had to deal with made all the worse by the ridiculously slow legal process. The RSPCA, we have to remember, is a charity which receives no state funding and no lottery support and shouldn't be put in this position having to house such a vast number of animals for such a length of time.

"It isn't the law at fault; it's the execution of the law. There's something fundamentally wrong when it takes 18 months for a severe case of this magnitude to reach a conclusion."

But changing the law to allow the dogs to be given up straight away would be "saying that the person is guilty before they have had their day in court," he said. "The law needs to work in all situations, not just for one situation."