Animal cruelty officers broke down while describing the scene of a slaughter of more than 30 dogs after a neighbourhood dispute turned violent in New Zealand this week.
Police are investigating the incident, in which ten adult dogs and 23 puppies and very young dogs were shot dead by two men in a scene described by an animal cruelty investigator as “not unlike a massacre”.
Russell Mendoza is alleged to have confronted his neighbour, Rowan Hargreaves, complaining that one of Mr Hargreaves’ 39 dogs had killed his fox terrier. It is reported that Mr Mendoza then forced Mr Hargreaves to sign a letter agreeing to the shooting of his animals as a result.
Contains some graphic footage.
Mr Mendoza and another man, armed with a .22 rifle and a shotgun, later returned to Mr Hargreaves’ property in a rural area west of Auckland and shot the dogs in just over 20 minutes. Eight dogs survived, including four 3-day-old puppies that sheltered an under an adult dog that was killed.
Inspectors from New Zealand’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said that the organisation planned to file charges over the killings when forensic examination of the dead dogs was completed.
“I've never seen anything as horrible as this in my life and I cannot begin to imagine the terror these animals were faced with,” Sascha Keltie, an SPCA investigator, said.
There are photos of the survivors here.
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