Twenty puppies were dumped at the front gate of a South Auckland animal shelter this morning in what staff are calling their "worst ever 24 hours".
Early this morning, a vehicle parked at the front gate of an Auckland Council animal shelter in Manukau — leaving behind a box before driving away.
Inside, the box was full of puppies, who were all lying on top of each other, a blanket underneath them. The puppies are from two litters and are believed to be between from six to eight weeks old.
Speaking to 1News, shelter officer Elisha Byrne said it was "heartbreaking" to see so many puppies dumped.
"It's really hard to see, but we'd rather them here than being dumped in a park," she said.
Alongside the 20 found in the box, another nine were picked up in the Clendon Park area yesterday.
The two litters have been split up and placed in kennels, where they're waiting to be checked by a vet and then be adopted out.
"At the moment, they have a nice snug bed and equal food for everyone," Byrne said.
The nine found in Clendon Park have had to be sent to another shelter in Henderson as the Manukau one is full.
"When the other puppies came in, we were at full capacity that day, so we had no other option but to send them to the other shelter," Byrne said.
With more than 120 dogs, the Manukau shelter is almost always close to capacity, which made today's delivery even worse.
"I have to say this is the worst 24 hours that we've had at Manukau Animal Shelter," Auckland Council's general manager of licensing and regulatory compliance James Hassall told 1News.
"We now have to do something with these dogs. It's really irresponsible for the owners to just throw them at Auckland Council and our shelters to expect us to look after them."
He said it's a widespread problem across shelters, not just the Manukau one, saying: "We need to look at ourselves as dog owners."
He's urging dog owners to "desex, desex, desex".
"In the end, that's how we address this problem."
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