- Pets and Pats owner Angela Beer has twice been prosecuted over resource consent breaches at her posh doggy daycare;
- Former neighbours speak of their relief after Pets and Pats moved from its Dairy Flat base to Kumeu;
- Auckland Council says the Kumeu business has no resource consent - and needs one to operate.
Posh doggy daycare Pets and Pats is facing fresh inquiries from Auckland Council after it emerged its new location in north-west Auckland has no resource consent.
The new inquiries come as the business and its owner Angela Beer await sentencing for repeatedly breaching the terms of the resource consent that had allowed it to operate at Dairy Flat, north of Auckland.
Pets and Pats moved from Bawden Rd in Dairy Flat to a Kumeu property on State Highway 16 about a year ago.
It was during New Zealand Herald inquiries that it emerged the business had no resource consent to operate there - the same issue that first brought Beer into contact with Auckland Council around 2017.
As Beer and her business - Teddy and Friends Ltd - appeared for sentencing over the repeated Dairy Flat breaches, Auckland Council told the Herald its inspectors were now zoning in on the new Kumeu base.
The latest twist in the saga of Pets and Pats comes after years of it operating at Dairy Flat where it pitched to wealthy dog owners in central Auckland as a canine country retreat.
The company website continues to use imagery from the Dairy Flat base, including the manor-style home, swimming pool and tennis courts, rather than the former stables and more modest farm house at the Kumeu property.
Beer faced years of complaints from neighbours at Dairy Flat, culminating in two prosecutions by Auckland Council for breaches of its resource consent.
The Environment Court found Pets and Pats operating with more dogs than allowed, exercising dogs on parts of the property from which they were banned and for longer time periods than permitted. Judge Sheena Tepania has reserved her decision after last week’s sentencing hearing.
Former Dairy Flat neighbours claimed they counted as many as 120 dogs at the property at times - double the limit allowed under the resource consent.
They also told the Herald they experienced dog noise well outside the allowed hours - 11am until 1.30pm during the week with an extra hour allowed (2.30pm) during winter - and dogs on parts of the property from which they were barred, increasing exposure to close neighbours.
The noise would travel across Dairy Flat’s level land. With no hills in the way, the barking reached all the way to - and beyond - Lindsey Field’s home about 1.6km from Pets and Pats.
“With the winds, it was as if they were on my boundary,” she said. “It wasn’t just happy yapping. There would be some dogs that would be crying and screaming all day.”
It was the volume of the noise. Even if she was my best friend, I’d draw a line. I would go out because I couldn’t bear to be here.
“It’s okay to reflect on it now because we’re in a safe place,” she said, seated on the patio outside her sitting room with a cup of tea. This place is one she treasures above the other many lovely places on her property - “it’s so tranquil, the sun, the birds. It really calms your soul”.
It’s also a place she hasn’t, for years, felt like she’s been able to use. The low point was a Boxing Day meal intended to draw three families together that was ruined by the noise. It was too much to deal with - “we lifted everything up and went somewhere else”.
“It’s really sad to think something as simple as a dog barking would affect a human being. My safe place is my home,” Field said. As someone who suffered anxiety, “it was my only safe place”.
“To find my safe place was being invaded by dogs barking would bring on the anxiety. I would go out because I couldn’t bear to be here.”
Field talks of driving away from her home, parking at the sea and sitting in the car just to avoid hearing the dogs. She sought medical assistance, and counselling. “I feel a bit of a wet squib talking about it,” she said.
‘A dog Disneyland’
As Field saw it, Beer’s determination not to acknowledge there was an issue really ground it in. They never spoke, she said, but communicated by text.
“She would just keep saying ‘we don’t hear it and we live on the property’, or ‘there aren’t many dogs today’.” Just an acknowledgment, said Field, and “I would have been a bit more sympathetic”.
“It was always defensive. I had no problem with her earning the money. She was employing people. It seemed idyllic - a dog Disneyland.”
But the barking. “It was the volume of the noise. Even if she was my best friend, I’d draw a line. It was too much.”
Field began documenting the arrival times and the queues at the gate. She sent regular emails to council where, she said, staff were responsive and understanding. “They could only do what they could do.”
Then came the day Field drove past and saw moving vans in the driveway. “I couldn’t believe it until it had really happened. And then problem is you’re waiting for the next bark.”
Field struggled to accept it after so long and so much anguish. She wondered if the dog daycare would move back in after the furniture had been swapped out. When she saw it reported on Facebook that it had relocated to Kumeu, it became real.
She recalls that moment with a huge sigh. “It’s over.”
Amanda Green, who lives a few hundred metres from Pets and Pats’ former boundary, said a sense of relief had spread across the neighbourhood after the moving vans arrived about a year ago.
Until then, she said there had been years of constant barking, dogs escaping, pet owners queued up to drop of dogs and the Pets and Pats vans either dropping off dogs or parked up on nearby streets to wait for the allowed drop-off time.
Green said the disruption and noise of Pets and Pats had consumed the community, with a grinding frustration at the pace with which council enforcement action appeared to take.
That became worse, she said, after Beer received name suppression for much of the court process because the neighbourhood was left in the dark about what action was being taken.
It was just one day she was gone. It was kind of ending with a whimper, not a bang.
“I think everyone was a bit traumatised by then.”
Then an email dropped from a neighbour in the first week of June, 2024. “Look, there’s a moving van,” it read.
“It was just one day she was gone. It was kind of ending with a whimper, not a bang.” Now, she said, she was loving seeing people in the community happy to have a chat about things other than Pets and Pats.
“Now it’s like, ‘how are the mokos, what’s going on in your house, have you tried the new jam at the farmers’ market’.”
Drama brought neighbours together
There has been a return to the bucolic country peace which drew so many to the area. For the residents of Dairy Flat, the days are now quiet again and the roads clear of the traffic which caused so much concern.
This is an active and involved neighbourhood, in part drawn together by the chaos and drama around Pets and Pats.
Meetings to discuss the issue morphed into social events and, now, people are close. They all know each other’s names and, in many bases, their business too. Some neighbours are so close they track each other on their mobile phones - an easy way to know if someone is home to a drop-in visitor.
The owners of the property engaged with that spirit once they had taken over the property again. Green said they visited neighbours with wine, an apology and news that they had asked council to wipe the resource consent off the property “so it can’t happen again”.
Green and other neighbours have high praise for the council staff. She claimed it was those staff meetings with neighbours that put the neighbourhood on a pathway to eventual resolution. At the meeting, the noise of dogs barking was so loud that Green said those present struggled to be heard.
We were listening to the outsourced problems of Remuera and Ponsonby and Parnell - they didn’t want their dogs barking all day at home.
And then walking the council staff along the boundary showed the extent of the issue - she said as the small group passed close to the fence line about 30 dogs came tearing along the paddock to bark at the walkers.
“That was when they started to understand because they experienced it. We were listening to the outsourced problems of Remuera and Ponsonby and Parnell - they didn’t want their dogs barking all day at home.”
Green said the math made sense for Beer. With dogs visiting at - she says - $60 a day, the difference between 60 dogs and 120 dogs is $3600 extra a day.
“What’s a fine of $30,000,” asks Green, referring to the first sentence entered against Beer. The fine was actually $40,000 to Beer and $37,500 to Teddy and Friends Ltd. Beer, in contrast, told the recent sentencing hearing that the breaches were to improve quality of life for the dogs.
Barking drove neighbour to counselling
One neighbour who shared a boundary with Pets and Pats was so disturbed by the constant noise she “ended up a year in counselling to learn resilience techniques to manage the barking”.
When she read in a local paper of Pets and Pats plans to increase their consented dog numbers to 200, she letter dropped neighbours to organise a meeting. “I thought, ‘I can’t be the only one’.”
And she wasn’t. “We have people all around here, all the way up,” she gestures away from the flat land surrounding the property to the hills along the road. “A 2km radius of complaints.”
The extent of the impact, and the severity of it, bonded the neighbours. They discussed standing at the roadside and handing out leaflets to dog owners dropping their pets off. There was also discussion of a High Court action to enforce an underlying covenant on the land barring the operation of a kennels business.
At one stage, the immediate neighbour installed double-glazing in a bid to reduce the noise of the barking.
The Herald was told about similar steps taken across the neighbourhood - claims of people pulling heavy blinds in the middle of the day to block out noise and staying inside when the weather out was beautiful.
The immediate neighbour said there were up to 20 dogs overnight and the barking began when they were let out around 7am. “And every time a van came, the decibel level would just go up and up and up.
She had counted up to 120 dogs at the property - “a 100% breach of dogs allowed on site”. She also noted vans arriving as early at 8.30am and not leaving until 3.30pm. Once council enforcement began, she said the vans parked on nearby roads until the permitted time arrived.
The dogs also regularly crossed onto her property, she said, pointing to a section of bush where the undergrowth had been trampled into mud. On one occasion, she claimed she watched as escaped dogs bothered her horses.
“The dogs were jumping at them, trying to get them. I basically had to shut down this paddock.”
A copy of the Auckland Council complaint form describes staff from Pets and Pats calling to the dogs as they pursued horses around a paddock.
The complaint described the neighbour securing the horses in stables - they were uninjured - and “at this stage the handlers from the doggie day care were able to catch the rampaging dogs and regain control with the leash”. The claims are denied by Beer.
A spokesperson for Auckland Council said Pets and Pats was given a “formal warning notice” - but not an infringement notice - “for failing to keep a dog under control”.
The immediate neighbour said: “It was a living hell. It was unbelievable. It’s just so traumatising. Every single time now a dog barks, it activates this anxiety that comes up.
“Locally, we all created a community of support because it was unbearable.”
At the time Beer moved out, she was away. The news arrived by text from a neighbour. “And I’m looking and I don’t believe it.”
One neighbour sent her a photograph to prove it - “it was from one day noisy to the next day bliss”, he says.
And when she arrived home and stepped out of the taxi to be greeted by country quiet, she “broke down and cried”.
All quiet on the north-western front
At Kumeu, Pets and Pats has not had the same impact. The Herald spoke to neighbours near and far and they reported no issues.
Those living closest reported low-level barking but also a lower number of dogs than those counted at Dairy Flat. One homeowner speculated on the hilly landscape acting as a shield to the barking.
That was endorsed by a neighbour with a hill between his place and the kennels. He said he had caught the occasional series of barks which floated up and over the hill between the properties. The noise was present but not piercing, he said.
Auckland Council - like the Kumeu neighbours - said the dog daycare wasn’t causing the issues with which it had been associated in Dairy Flat. “No complaints have been received regarding a dog day care business operating at that address, or about noise from dogs at that address.”
The Herald asked if a resource consent was needed for the new Kumeu location - and if Pets and Pats had such a consent. No, said the spokeswoman, there had been no consents granted for a dog daycare at the property.
“Consent would be required for such an operation,” she said.“
“The council will be carrying out inquiries related to the new location of the business in Kumeu.”
The spokeswoman said the breaches of resource consent from Dairy Flat and subsequent prosecutions would not count against Beer and her company applying for a new one. She said Labour’s proposed Natural and Built Environments Act did include this but had been repealed under the Government so “the RMA does not have any existing provisions for such a consideration”.
One particular frustration for neighbours was that the incessant barking wasn’t enough to find the business at fault. One a number of occasions, formal decibel measures fell short of levels considered unacceptable.
A council spokeswoman said noise testing under the Auckland Unitary plan saw results averaged out over a set time period. “While this method works well for many purposes as it smooths out peaks and troughs, it is not so well suited to measuring short, sharp sounds such as gunshots or dogs barking.”
As for the process, which Dairy Flat neighbours described as difficult and long, the spokeswoman said it was handled “as quickly as possible” but “we acknowledge the process has been lengthy due to multiple delays and adjournments which were not within the council’s control”.
Neighbours and former staff spoken to by the Herald repeatedly raised concerns about dog welfare. Beer has always emphasised her love for dogs and said they are well looked after while in her care.
One former staff member told the Herald they complained to the SPCA, concerned at dogs spending hours in the vans after being collected and when dropped off.
“She goes through a lot of staff,” said one person who had worked at Kumeu, surprised to turn up at a disused stables in north-west Auckland rather than the Dairy Flat property with a swimming pool and tennis court.
“That’s the old place. She needs to tell her clients it’s not like that any more.”
The former staff member worked there for only a short time, saying they did not approve of the way dogs were managed.
The person said they were discomfited at having some dogs in the Pets and Pats van for almost three hours from pick up and a similar time period after a few hours at the Kumeu property.
They claimed: “They spend more time in the van than they do running around having fun, if you can call it that.”
Once at the property, the person said some dogs were left chained inside a “dusty barn” because “they can’t mix with other dogs” and “have behavioural issues”.
Other dogs allegedly escaped through holes in the fenced-off exercise area leaving staff to chase and catch them.
The former staff member said there were periods when it was “absolute chaos”. One such time was when loading the dogs on to vans from a pen at the bottom of the property. “There were dogs that were obviously scared of other dogs. One dog got hold of another dog’s ear and it was bleeding.”
The former staff member’s claims were supported by another former staff member who worked there at the same time and said they witnessed the same events. Both estimated there were around 60 dogs collected and returned.
Staff called SPCA with concerns
The other former staff member said: “We rang the SPCA on that place and supposedly they were going to send an inspector to have a look. We literally told them everything.”
SPCA inspectorate team Lead Andre Williams said: “SPCA can confirm it has received and responded to two complaints about this business over the last 24 months.
“A small number of low-level issues were identified at the inspections. SPCA is currently working with the business to ensure it operates in a compliant manner and therefore will not be commenting further at this time.”
Beer would not be interviewed by the Herald but responded to emailed questions.
She claimed that adverse reports from former staff had been driven by former employees who “staged photos of dogs” as their employment came to an end and then “made financial demands that were declined”.
She said “their claims are categorically false and motivated by personal agendas”, adding that the SPCA and Auckland Council’s animal management team, - and WorkSafe NZ - “have all confirmed no animal or staff welfare concerns ever in our 15-year history”.
She said the SPCA statement was incorrect and she would be approaching the agency to have it corrected. She also said “routine follow-ups on minor administrative items do not equate to welfare breaches”.
Beer claimed the images provided to the Herald had been “staged” by former staff. “They made financial demands that were declined, and their claims are categorically false and motivated by personal agendas.”
She did not respond to a question asking if she had referred this to police.
The staff members to which Beer referred were not those interviewed by the Herald. Beer has been told of this and replied: “I am well aware of who the groups of individuals are. No further comment will be provided to avoid compromising potential proceedings.”
Beer was asked by the Herald why the website and Facebook page for Pets and Pats had not been updated to reflect the move to Kumeu. She did not respond to that question.
Beer also did not directly respond to questions about how long the dogs spent in transit, saying only the vans “meet all regulatory standards, including temperature control and safe transit times”.
“Claims to the contrary are baseless.”
She said most dogs now had airtags so owners knew “exactly where dogs are at and how long they are in vans”.
She said she would “work with Auckland Council on consenting requirements” at Kumeu.
On the Dairy Flat breaches, Beer said they were “consent-related over my vans arriving slightly earlier to ensure dogs were spending more time at the farm”.
“My use of extra areas at the farm was for the well-being of the dogs, so that elderly dogs could have their own separate spaces.
“These breaches did not impact neighbours. Neighbours were unhappy regards noise but on four separate occasions our noise levels were tested and we complied.”
I breached my consents for the dogs’ happiness.
She said there was “a slight temporary increase in the number of dogs” after having no dogs at all during Covid-19 lockdowns. “I have taken full responsibility for the breaches and pleaded guilty.
“I breached my consents for the dogs’ happiness.”
Beer said complaints mainly came from “a handful neighbours from the same households” and not a wider group. “They even complained during Covid lockdowns when there were no dogs on the property. They were not 300 individual complaints.”
She said she strongly refuted any allegations about animal welfare, either by former staff or neighbours. She said stock were not bothered and if they had been then neighbours “would have taken video/photo footage given the level of intense scrutiny”.
“My guests are predominantly small cavoodle and, mini schnauzers, small dogs who can’t jump high fences. We have a stringent assessment process to assess our dogs to ensure they are happy and healthy around other dogs, animals and people.
“Ironically in the country most neighbours have dogs and many went wandering and turned up at our property and some do bother stock but not our dogs.
“I have run this business for nearly 15 years and my focus remains on providing a service for dog owners who want the best for their pets.
“Thousands of families have trusted me and my team with this privilege over that time. I will continue to prioritise the wellbeing, safety and care of the dogs and maintaining positive, transparent relationships with my clients and with my current neighbours.”
During the court hearing, Beer’s lawyer Bronwyn Carruthers KC raised matters she wanted the judge to consider when sentencing Beer and her company, Teddy and Friends Ltd.
Among those was her request the judge consider that Beer’s operation at least had a resource consent when other similar businesses did not. The new Kumeu site was not raised in court.
She also said a fine at the level Auckland Council had sought - $140,000 - might be too steep for Beer and her company to pay. She declined an invitation from the judge to provide evidence to support that.
In an affidavit to the court referring to Pets and Pats, Beer said: “I have not profited from it.” Carruthers said “there has been revenue generated but that is not profit”.
In January, Beer became the owner - alongside another person - of a $3m property in Clevedon. The five-bedroom, four-bathroom home is the centrepiece of a sprawling rural property set over almost 13ha.
When selling it, Sotheby’s said: “The vendors have operated a successful wedding hire venue here for a number of years as a side hustle and the property is able to generate a significant income as is or there is the opportunity to take it to the next level.”
Asked about how she might not afford a fine when she had bought a $3m country villa, she said: “My personal assets are irrelevant to the business and unrelated to operational decisions.”
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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