A Chinese student has got four months' home detention for punching and stomping a little black terrier dog to death.
Dingshan Xiao killed the terrier belonging to a woman flatmate at a flat in Deans Avenue, Christchurch.
Christchurch District Court Judge Phillip Moran said today he did not accept that cultural factors could explain the attack, which left the dog cowering under a table where it died.
He described the attack as callous and cruel. "This animal must have suffered considerably before it died."
Xiao, 25, is a student who is doing well at the New Zealand College of Business, and works at a hamburger restaurant chain.
He will serve his home detention at an address in Linwood, and Judge Moran ordered him to pay $482 to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), for the cost of the post mortem examination of the terrier.
He also ordered Xiao to pay $1000 for emotional harm to the flatmate who owned the dog, and he made an order that he is not allowed to own a dog or exercise authority over one for five years.
Xiao had pleaded guilty earlier but disputed some of the details of the attack and a disputed facts hearing was meant to be held today. The police wanted to call evidence from an eye-witness who saw the attack from a neighbouring property.
But Judge Moran blocked the hearing, saying it was not necessary because the evidence would not affect the sentencing on the charge of wilfully ill-treating the animal.
Xiao had been left caring for four dogs by the flatmates. The dogs had repeatedly soiled the flat, and did it again on the night of the attack, April 4.
Defence counsel Vicki Walsh said he let them outside but the terrier refused to come back in.
When he caught it, he punched it several times and while it was down he stomped on it.
The police said the stomping was with both feet; Xiao said it was with one.
She said Xiao later accepted he went too far. He had been distressed and tearful when the truth of what he had done had dawned on him.
"He said that disciplining of a dog by way of a beating is not abnormal or seen as abusive in his country," she told the court.
Xiao had no previous convictions in New Zealand or China. She asked the judge to step back from a prison term. At the end of his sentence, Xiao's student permit would be reviewed by the Immigration Department to decide whether he could remain in New Zealand.
Ms Walsh also said the dog had belonged to a flatmate to whom Xiao had loaned $9000, which was due to be repaid at the time of the incident.
Judge Moran told Xiao his country was an ancient civilisation. "I would be amazed if Chinese people thought it was culturally proper to beat dogs. I give you no credit for that, because I don't accept it's a fact."
In any case, Xiao must abide by New Zealand law while he was in the country. The maximum penalty for this crime in New Zealand was three years' prison, or a $50,000 fine, or both.
Beating the dog for making a mess inside showed he had no insight into animal behaviour.
"The only consequence for beating a dog is that it will hide to make a mess. Dogs don't learn from beatings," Judge Moran said.
