Auckland woman jailed after morbidly obese dog Nuggi dies: SPCA says pooch couldn’t walk 10 metres

A Manurewa woman has been jailed after feeding her morbidly obese dog to death.

The SPCA took the woman’s dog, Nuggi, after police executed a search warrant at her Auckland home where they found “a number of” dogs in October 2021.

Nuggi could not even walk 10 metres, having to stop three times to catch his breath when animal control officers rescued him from the woman’s home.

A Manurewa woman has been jailed for failing to meet a dog's physical, health and behavioural needs. Photo / SPCA

Animal control officers said his legs appeared to be collapsing under the weight of his huge body, the SPCA said.

The woman had been feeding Nuggi up to 10 pieces of chicken a day, on top of the dog biscuits she fed him.

Animal control officers took Nuggi to the SPCA’s Māngere Centre to be assessed by a veterinarian.

Nuggi weighed 53.7kg, and the SPCA said he was so obese it was not possible to hear his heart with a stethoscope because the sound could not penetrate the fat.

“His nails were overgrown, and he had lots of skin tags, particularly on areas of contact such as his belly and elbows. Nuggi also had conjunctivitis,” the SPCA said.

The veterinarian observed Nuggi struggling to move around, having difficulty breathing, not coping with warm weather and being overall fatigued.

“She [the vet] concluded that due to the extra weight Nuggi was carrying, he would have suffered severe long-term discomfort and distress,” the SPCA said.

Nuggi died after spending two months in the SPCA’s care. In that time he lost 8.9kg, about 16% of his body weight. He died due to an acute haemorrhage from a ruptured mass on his liver. A necropsy revealed he had further health complications, including liver disease and Cushing’s disease.

SPCA chief executive Todd Westwood said they were used to treating underweight animals, saying Nuggi was “one of the most obese animals we’ve ever encountered”.

Nuggi's owner had been feeding him up to 10 pieces of chicken a day, on top of the dog biscuits she fed him. Photo / SPCA

Westwood said: “He was so enormous that he could hardly walk and he was clearly suffering as a result of the significant amount of weight he was carrying.

“Sadly, we see animals on a daily basis that are underweight, starved or malnourished, but it’s equally heartbreaking to see a helpless animal that’s been severely overfed.”

Westwood said Nuggi was “clearly” not given an appropriate diet and daily exercise.

“Nuggi was being drastically overfed, and instead of seeking help or amending the behaviour, his owner continued to overfeed him until he could barely walk. This is unacceptable,” he said.

The woman was sentenced in the Manukau District Court, where she was also ordered to pay reparations of $1222.15 and disqualified from owning dogs for a year and jailed for two months.

In other recent animal abuse cases, a Whanganui dog boarding and daycare business was fined $11,000 last month after a dog in its care died when it was left in a hot car for more than nine hours.

In May, the SPCA said it had been seeing an increase in animal cruelty cases in Waikato, including where animals had been thrown out of moving vehicles. The SPCA highlighted two cases where members of the public saw motorists dump dogs out of car windows.

In April, almost a dozen week-old puppies were found in a box on the roadside in Huntly.

In March, the Tauranga City Council described the “largest-ever” seizure of its kind when 13 German shepherd dogs and 40 cats were removed from a residential property.

Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.