[ZenGum]

There may be more to this than we know.
Maybe the original owner of the dog developed a mental illness that made her unable to cope and she took refuge in denial of reality. Remember those really filthy rooms we saw images of a while back? It might be something like that, which would make the light sentence more fitting.
Of course, if she wasn't mentally ill, then I'll gladly join the old-fashioned-justice mob.