A woman who was recently charged with scamming locals was yesterday fined $800 after admitting to illegally breeding and housing dogs without a permit.Wendy Francis of South Shore Road, Warwick, pleaded guilty in Magistrates’ Court to illegal breeding and keeping multiple dogs without a permit.Prosecutor Karen King told the court that on June 9, the Department of Environmental Protection received information that a litter of eight-week-old Shih Tzu puppies were for sale by the 40-year-old at her Warwick residence.A check of the department’s Animal Database revealed that Francis’ current residence did not hold a breeder’s licence, although she had been previously issued a licence for another Warwick residence last year.The licence issued last year expired in December 2011.A warrant was issued to confiscate the puppies from Francis and on June 29 animal wardens attended her residence to seize the dogs.When the wardens knocked on the defendant’s door, they received no response but noticed through the windows of the house that there were four puppies in a playpen inside.The police were contacted to aid the wardens in seizing the puppies.Upon arrival, the officers took the puppies and the mother dog to government kennels.Later, on July 3, animal wardens informed Francis that she would be put before the courts for the offences.In court, Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner asked Ms King “what are the penalties for illegal breeding?”Ms King informed the Magistrate that a fine of up to $10,000 or six months imprisonment could be issued.However, because the defendant had no previous convictions of a similar nature, she was only fined $400 for each offence.Francis is also facing unrelated charges of “puppy snatching”, credit card theft and formulating a deceptive scheme to sell the same private car to multiple drivers. She denied all charges.The additional matters will be dealt with on October 29.