A dog owner has been fined $750 and sentenced to 75 hours community work after admitting he failed to adequately feed and care for his severely malnourished pet.
Phillip Warral Kahotea, 26, from Te Puke, was also disqualified from owning another dog for three years after pleading guilty to a charge of failing to ensure the physical, health and behavioural needs of the animal were met when he appeared in Tauranga District Court this morning.
The charges followed three visits to Kahotea's property by an SPCA animal welfare inspector this year. On the third visit, on May 25, the dog was seized by the inspector. It weighed only 14.8kg, had no body fat, and its muscles were underdeveloped or wasted away.
Tauranga SPCA had received two earlier complaints about the dog.
Kahotea admitted the animal had been off the chain only a couple of times since he owned it - a period of about two years.
