A MAN has been banned from keeping animals for life after leaving his pet dog to suffer an horrific skin disease.

The German shepherd dog had to be put down after the infection, which started out as dermatitis, eventually ate away at its flesh, leaving it to suffer tremendous pain for months.

Andrew Brian Gibson, of Auckland Avenue, Darlington, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the animal, at a hearing at Bishop Auckland Magistrates' Court earlier this month, and appeared before the court for sentencing yesterday.

Kevin Campbell, for the RSPCA, said two vets from Stanhope Park surgery, in Darlington, confirmed the dog had been suffering for a considerable length of time.

He said: "The vets have said that the dog must have lived in intense continuous discomfort and pain.

"The dog suffered a disease that is treatable. A lot of dogs get it. It would have started by scratching itself and it would get worse and worse, developing into sores and then the sores would begin to open up. This dog has clearly gone through all of those stages and its body was being eaten away by the sores."

Gibson had told RSPCA officers that he regularly bathed the dog but had not noticed the sores.

He admitted to being "a bit silly", thinking he could handle the sores without intervention.

As well as being banned from keeping any kind of animal for life, magistrates gave him a 200-hour community sentence order and ordered him to pay £603.05 costs.