Today, she appeared in New Plymouth District Court, where it was heard the dogs had been euthanised.
According to the summary of facts, the American pit bull terriers had been classified as menacing dogs by the Porirua City Council before the incidents.
They were normally kept at Mihaere’s Porirua property and were required to be muzzled when out in public.
On October 1, 2024, Mihaere travelled to Taranaki to attend a tangi and left the dogs at a family member’s Seaview Rd property in New Plymouth.
That afternoon, a man arrived at the property to assess and repair a broken window.
After taking photos of the window outside, he needed to photograph it from inside.
The man saw one of the tenants through the window and waved before walking to the front door and calling out.
As he opened the door slightly and yelled for the tenant, Loyal and King began barking and rushed at the doorway, forcing it open and escaping.
The dogs immediately attacked the man, biting his hands.
He attempted to flee towards the gate but only made it a few metres before the dogs knocked him to the ground.
While on his hands and knees, using his arms to shield his face and neck, the man was repeatedly bitten across his body.
According to the summary, the “frenzied attack” continued for up to a minute before tenants came from the house, pulled the dogs away and secured them in a bedroom.
The injured man was taken inside and given first aid before his wife picked him up and took him to the hospital.
He was initially treated at Taranaki Base Hospital before being flown to Waikato Hospital, where he underwent surgery, including a skin graft.
The attack left him with bites to both hands, including injuries that required stitches, as well as wounds to both thighs and his left calf. Some of the bites penetrated through to the fatty tissue.
Before Animal Control became aware of the incident, Mihaere had returned to Wellington with the dogs.
She later messaged the victim to check on him and told him she had enrolled King and Loyal in a pit bull training camp to prevent a similar incident from happening again.
The man required surgery to treat his injuries.
But later the same month, the dogs and Mihaere returned to New Plymouth and were involved in a second incident.
A young boy was riding a scooter along the footpath on Seaview Rd and was aggressively chased by the dogs.
The boy jumped from his scooter and ran.
A passerby intervened, yelling at the dogs to drive them away before checking on the child and retrieving his scooter.
Witnesses photographed the dogs, which were not wearing muzzles, near the roadside and followed them back to the Seaview Rd property.
When one onlooker approached the house intending to alert the owner, the dogs behaved aggressively towards him, prompting a call to Animal Control.
A tenant told Animal Control the dogs belonged to Mihaere and refused to surrender them because they were not his.
In November 2024, Porirua City Council executed a search warrant at Mihaere’s property and seized the dogs.
They were transferred to the New Plymouth District Council pound.
Later that month, Mihaere told council investigators she had learned of the attack on the man from family members.
She said she did not know how the dogs escaped from the property during the scooter incident, but maintained that her Porirua property was fully fenced and that King was better trained than Loyal.
In court, defence lawyer Josie Mooney sought a sentence of community work, saying community detention, an electronically monitored sentence with fixed curfew hours, would be impractical because Mihaere worked varied hours as a caregiver.
The man was repeatedly bitten across his body, leaving him with some injuries that required stitches and surgery.
Jacob Bourke, for the New Plymouth District Council, described the attack as a “decent” one in terms of its seriousness, but said Mihaere had taken responsibility from the outset and handed the dogs over for destruction.
He said that was a responsible step not often seen in dog prosecutions and supported a sentence that would not jeopardise her employment.
Judge Thomas Ingram said the offending did not involve serious negligence on Mihaere’s part and accepted that she had taken immediate responsibility.
Noting that Mihaere was a highly regarded caregiver, he accepted that community detention could affect her employment and said that was not in anyone’s interest.
Judge Ingram imposed a sentence of 100 hours’ community work.
Tara Shaskey is an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She joined NZME in 2022 and has worked as a journalist since 2014.