The owners of a nine-year-old German shepherd that killed an elderly cat argue their dog was defending itself after being attacked first.<\/p>\n
By Justin Wong of Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
The Upper Hutt City Council had given the dog a “menacing” classification after it caused the death of 18-year-old tabby Puss in Boots on a public footpath at Amber Grove, Birchville, in September last year.<\/p>\n
The owners challenged the decision at a hearing last week.<\/p>\n
However, the council\u2019s regulatory processes committee \u2013 including mayor Peri Zee and councillors Dave Wheeler and Daniel Welch \u2013 upheld the classification following 21 minutes of closed-door deliberations.<\/p>\n
The hearing heard the unnamed dog, being walked on a lead and harness attached to one of the owners, was sniffing at a fence when the cat entered the footpath from a neighbouring driveway.<\/p>\n
The cat \u201cswiped\u201d at the dog who then \u201cretaliated\u201d, the summary of facts stated.<\/p>\n
“[CCTV] video footage shows the latter part of the incident, with your dog engaging the cat, which was at times pinned beneath the dog.”<\/p>\n
The dog\u2019s owner, who separated the two animals, was the only eyewitness. The cat bit her on the middle finger.<\/p>\n
The owners objected to the classification, saying there was no clear evidence their dog initiated aggression or displayed behaviour demonstrating an ongoing threat to domestic animals.<\/p>\n
They told councillors greater weight should be given to eyewitnesses because the video footage was unclear and open to interpretation.<\/p>\n
Their written submission said the cat leapt on to the dog\u2019s face and “became attached to her head, clawing her”.<\/p>\n
“The clearest visible portion of the footage shows the cat attacking our dog, and jumping onto her face.”<\/p>\n
They said their dog reacted defensively after being attacked by the cat.<\/p>\n
“Her body posture appears low and withdrawn, including a lowered tail and retreating movement, which are commonly associated with fear or distress responses in dogs rather than offensive or aggressive behaviour.”<\/p>\n
The owners believed the council\u2019s decision was based on one isolated incident.<\/p>\n
“It is deeply concerning that this one defensive reaction is now being used to label her as a threat, despite a long history of calm and non-aggressive behaviour.”<\/p>\n
Puss In Boots\u2019 owners said they took the cat straight to the vet, where it died in their arms.<\/p>\n
A menacing classification meant the dog must have a microchip transponder and not be in public without being muzzled.<\/p>\n
The Upper Hutt council\u2019s animal control annual report for 2023-24 showed 21 dogs were classified as menacing.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owners of a nine-year-old German shepherd that killed an elderly cat argue their dog was defending itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,42,43,135,40,38,41,39,52],"class_list":["post-504201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-animals","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}