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A Caversham resident is horrified after discovering her neighbour’s pony has died and been buried in the backyard.

The woman, who declined to be named, said the animal had been living in the narrow backyard of a Sydney St address for quite some time.

It was alive earlier this week, but she came home on Thursday after work and found it lying dead on the neighbour’s back lawn.

She witnessed five people digging a shallow grave in the neighbour’s backyard (within a couple of metres of the house) on Thursday night, and by yesterday morning it was buried.

However, she was now concerned it was a health hazard for neighbours, given the hot weather Dunedin was experiencing.

The woman said that the carcass was beginning to bloat and last night one of its legs had popped out of the ground.

‘‘You know what the weather’s going to be like for the next two or three days.

‘‘I don’t want that smell.

‘‘And it’s a health hazard.’’

She said the owners of the property were not home and she was angry that no-one wanted to do anything about it.

She called the Dunedin City Council and was told ‘‘they don’t want to do anything about it’’.

Police said it was a council matter and declined to investigate.

An Otago Regional Council spokeswoman said it was not illegal to bury animals on private property.

‘‘If it were in a waterway or a body of water, we might have jurisdiction in terms of our role. We would ask the owner to remove it.

‘‘But because it’s on land, it’s not really something we can do anything about.’’