Content warning: This story discusses animal abuse
A woman who kicked her small dog and threw him against a wall, fracturing multiple bones and causing his lung to collapse, has been sentenced to community detention and six months of supervision.
The sentence comes after the woman pleaded guilty to ill-treatment of an animal at the Porirua District Court.
The incident occurred in April 2022, when the woman said her white terrier, Mister, had woken her and her children in the middle of the night – after getting his claw stuck in a rug.
When she went to help him, the woman said Mister had gone to the toilet inside, and she stepped on it, “trampling it through the house”.
“This made her angry,” the SPCA said,
The next day, she decided to punish the dog by putting him on a leash outside. When she tried to do this, the dog bit her.
“I just grabbed him by his collar, pulled him up, put it on, and I just went boot, and then just threw him,” she told inspectors.
She said she did it to “discipline him”.
There was no intention to hurt Mister despite throwing him against a wall, she said.
When SPCA inspectors were called to the property, they found Mister lying on his side.
The animal was tethered to an outdoor star rail at the back of the property. He didn’t move when approached, and his left eye was “swollen and red”.
He was rushed to an emergency vet and “appeared to be in immense pain” on his ribs, abdomen and left shoulder. Mister’s shoulder made a “crunching noise” when moved.
An X-ray revealed the dog had multiple fractured ribs and a collapsed lung. He also had a “severely fractured scapula in two places”, and “some of the rib fractures appeared to be between two and four weeks old”.
The vet said his injuries were a result of “blunt force trauma”.
After pleading guilty to the charges laid against her, the woman has been sentenced to one month of community detention and six months of supervision.
She was also disqualified from owning dogs for three years and ordered to pay $598.17 in reparations.
Mister has now made a full recovery after spending several weeks recovering at SPCA's Wellington centre. He has since been adopted to a new home.
SPCA chief executive Todd Westwood called the brutal beating of Mister “horrific abuse”.
“It’s sickening to think of the fear, pain and distress this helpless family pet endured at the hands of the person who was meant to care for him,” he said.
“Mister did not deserve any of this, and I’m so grateful that SPCA was alerted to this abuse before it could continue.”
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