Supervision after dog starved

A woman has been prosecuted after her family dog was found chained to his kennel and starved to death.

Whero, an adult brindle crossbreed dog, was found by SPCA inspectors lying dead in his kennel on a residential Napier property on July 10, 2018.

Whero lived with Kura Munro since he was a puppy and was about four years old when he died.

Munro was found guilty of illtreating a dog and at the Napier District Court on Monday was sentenced to nine months’ supervision, disqualified from owning dogs for five years, and ordered to pay $740 in reparations.

Yesterday, the SPCA said when inspectors found Whero, the dog ‘‘appeared to be in extremely thin body condition, and his hips, ribs and spine were all clearly visible’’. Whero’s body was examined further and ‘‘there was gross evidence of serious fat atrophy throughout the body, including his bone marrow, which is reportedly the last area to be depleted of fat reserves’’.

‘‘Whero also had haemorrhagic gastro enteritis, as well as hookworm eggs in his faeces. There were faeces stuck to his rectum which contained digested blood, and there was blood oozing from his gums around his upper teeth.’’

The dog’s poor condition would have been obvious to a lay person and Whero would have been in severe discomfort, the SPCA said.

Munro said in an interview that she checked her dog’s water every day and appeared fine until the day before she found him dead, the SPCA said. But she also did not feed or check on Whero herself because it was too cold in the morning before work and dark in the evening when she got home.

Munro said her former partner was responsible for feeding Whero when he went to the property daily to look after the children but in October, Munro’s former partner Michael Williams told the court the pair had separated about four weeks before the dog died and he believed she had been feeding the dog.

Inquiries found he was not there for ‘‘periods of time, although he was there in the days before Whero died’’.

Munro later said she noticed Whero was getting skinny around two days before he died, the SPCA said.

SPCA chief executive Andrea Midgen said it was unbelievable to think a person could treat an animal like this. ‘‘In the last weeks of Whero’s life he was essentially a prisoner on a chain, at the total mercy of his owners.’’