An Australian businessman pleaded not guilty to possessing more than 70 ecstasy tablets, telling Darwin Magistrates Court he had hoped they would prevent his shar-pei dogs from breeding.

Dog owner, Stephen James Dwyer, told the court the ecstasy tablets had come into his hands when he met the owner of a female shar-pei outside a laundromat. In conversation, the owner of the bitch told Dwyer that he had doggy birth control pills that he no longer needed because his bitch had been neutered.

Dwyer said he knew his dog was about to come on heat and he thought the pills would be "very handy for her." He claimed that no money had changed hands.

Magistrate Vince Luppino said he did not find the excuse for having a traffickable amount of ecstasy "reasonable" and handed down a suspended jail sentence of two months.

Sunday Territorian