A Thames man in his late 20s avoided a jail sentence when he was sentenced to 160 hours' community work after being convicted of duct taping a dog's muzzle shut and slitting its throat in a "home euthanasing" earlier this year.
Matthew David William Kepa was sentenced in Thames District Court yesterday, after earlier admitting killing the dog in a way that involved unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress.
The body of the brindled dog, a young adult female, known as Nizmo, was discovered at a Thames reserve on March 8. Its muzzle had been fastened close with duct tape and her throat slit. It is estimated that death would have taken place between one and two minutes after the final cut to her throat.
Kepa was also ordered to pay $1000 costs to the SPCA, which investigated the case and brought the prosecution.
As a home euthanasing it was a "total disaster", said SPCA national chief inspector, Charles Cadwallader.
"Nizmo suffered a brutal death.The likelihood is that she experienced considerable additional distress from being held down and having her muzzle taped prior to being killed."
The SPCA was "reasonably satisfied" with the sentence given that Kepa committed the offence prior to the passing in July this year of the Animal Welfare Amendment Act.
Kepa was "fortunate" as under the new legislation, he might well have been looking at jail time.
"It's important that our courts keep on giving out the message that cruel, callous or reckless behaviour towards animals will not be tolerated. The new legislation should help them do precisely that," Mr Cadwallader said.
Mr Cadwallader told NZPA it was disappointing a Gisborne man was jailed for just six months yesterday for cutting the throat of a cattle beast, slashing its head with a knife and stabbing its eyeball as it stood in a paddock.
Korey Waho, 23, was earlier convicted in the Gisborne District Court of killing an animal with intent to steal it, and wilfully mistreating an animal on May 16, last year at Muriwai, south of Gisborne.
Waho had fought the charge and Judge Tony Adeane said the offending was at the upper end of the scale.
NZPA