The life of 12-year-old miniature fox terrier Amy has been shaped by luck, both good and bad.
Fortunately, she has caring owners; not so pleasant has been the loss of sight in one eye then the other.
The one-two combination of cataracts and glaucoma now limit Amy's wanderings to the backyard of the Portobello home of Keith and Abby Kirkwood.
There, Amy can enjoy the company of a couple of cats and a drake by the name of Romeo who, despite his name, has lacked for female company since the disappearance several years ago of his duck friend (Juliet, of course).
The Kirkwoods love animals.
In that, they are not unlike thousands of New Zealanders.
According to census figures, just over half of the country's households have a cat, with 18% having two or more; nearly a third of households have a dog.
As well as unconditional love, pets also offer medical benefits, according to some research.
The United States National Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says having a pet can decrease an owner's blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
In another study, published by the American Journal of Cardiology, men who owned dogs were found to be less likely to die a year after suffering a heart attack than those without canine companionship.
Yet, our animals are also the subjects of less heartening stories.
The conditions of the pig farm owned by former New Zealand Pork Industry Board chairman Colin Kay aside (a matter still hotly disputed by all parties), take a look through a few of the acts highlighted in the SPCA's recent "list of shame": On May 3, two children, aged under 10, dropped off two kittens to the Wellington Cats Protection League.
The animals had had their paws severed with either scissors or a knife.
According to staff, the children giggled, saying "their feet fell off".
The children and their parents left without giving any contact details, or it seems, showing any remorse.
On April 23, three teenagers blew a sheep's mouth apart with fireworks then set the animal on fire. Police allege they also beat the sheep with a stick, and slit open its stomach with a knife.
The three accused claim the sheep was already dead when they came across it.
In February, a wild goat was shot three times with a crossbow.
Police tracked down a teenager who had been out walking his dog when he attacked and killed the goat.
The same month, an 18-year-old man was charged with the theft of and attack on two pet goats that were tethered to the towbar of a car and forced to run behind.
When the two female goats could not run any longer, they were dragged several kilometres behind the vehicle.
Both goats died from their injuries.
Late last year, a mutilated cat was found hanging by a piece of string from a street sign in Tauranga.
A nail had been rammed in its head and its tail and three paws had been severed.
A 14-year-old boy was charged and sentenced to 10 weeks in a juvenile facility in Auckland.
In Dunedin, Jack Russell dog Diesel died when it was strangled, had petrol poured down its throat and was struck on the head with a shovel over a half-hour period in February.
Supermarket worker Jeffrey Robin Hurring (19), who pleaded guilty in Dunedin District Court to wilfully ill-treating the 18-month-old dog, was convicted and remanded at large for sentencing on June 23.
He faces a maximum penalty of three years in prison, a $50,000 fine, or both.
Last year was a particularly bad one for animals in this country, with just over 14,000 complaints registered with the SPCA, from which 58 convictions were made; go back five years, to 2004, and there were 11,401 complaints (72 convictions, though 42 involved one cattery).
"Basically, we are looking at young men - below the age of 30 - who do this," SPCA chief executive Robyn Kippenberger says.
"The increase in young men hurting animals is of concern, not only because of the harm to animals but because of the well-researched connection between cruelty to animals and violence to people."
An animal might also suffer within the context of domestic violence, Mrs Kippenberger suggests.
"They'll say, `you do this and I'll kill your cat'.
It's part of the psychological violence perpetrated on families," she says, adding drugs and alcohol are factors, though "I would suggest the violence is there anyway and drugs just lower the barriers."
Attempts by the SPCA to combat the problem include education programmes aimed at intermediate school pupils as well as upskilling staff in forensic analysis.
Dunedin senior inspector Stephanie Saunders was one of two SPCA staff to attend a recent course in Florida where she was taught techniques aimed at bringing to justice animal-cruelty offenders.
"We have already had a considerable number of convictions where we have used forensics," Mrs Kippenberger says.
"It is the severity of the sentence we are looking for, the appropriateness of the sentence. Without forensics, it is difficult to give the judge a picture of what happened."
In considering such situations, judges can look to the Animal Welfare Act (1999).
It has a list of "five freedoms" to which animals are entitled.
They are:
1. Freedom from thirst, hunger and malnutrition.
2. Provision of appropriate comfort and shelter.
3. Prevention, or rapid diagnosis and treatment of injury, disease or infestation with parasites.
4. Freedom from distress.
5. Ability to display normal patterns of behaviour.
Richard Wild, president of the New Zealand Veterinary Association and an animal welfare officer, believes the attitude of most people towards animals has improved.
"I think there is a continually improving attitude towards welfare but, again, there are both ends of the bell curve: in the livestock industry, stresses come on individuals that can impact on the welfare of animals.
"If a farmer is losing financial viability or there is a family break-up, that can manifest itself in the animals' welfare."
Dr Wild also points to what he describes as an "anthropomorphic" phenomenon.
In urban environments, animals have moved from the kennel or cage and up on to the bed.
"I think it reflects demographic changes between urban and rural, changes in the size of families. People are living alone more.
"Young, upwardly mobile professionals are living alone and have money to burn and need a companion ...
"We are prepared to spend lots of money on them because they are surrogate family."
Francesca Matthews, managing director of website the Pet Hub Ltd and a programme manager at the Otago Polytechnic's School of Veterinary Nursing, has also witnessed a change in people's attitudes in the 11 years she has been a veterinarian.
With the trappings of European and American cultures has come a greater valuing of pets, she believes.
"When you get into a more urban environment, it's a little less friendly than a rural one and pets are a friend no matter what.
"Your pet never gets grumpy with you.
"In the past, a pet was a bit of a disposable item.
"If it got expensive, it was just euthanased and replaced with another one.
"Now, the pet is absolutely part of the family."
Dr Matthews acknowledges the decision to put down a pet is often difficult.
Ultimately, a veterinarian has a responsibility to ensure an animal's quality of life.
Sometimes, death is the best option.
"When faced with a difficult decision I encourage people to consider whether their pet still has good quality of life.
"Are they still eating and maintaining their bodily functions? What are the key things about life that are still enjoying? Are they going for walks or just sitting on the floor watching me go about my day? Ideally, we want the client to come to the best decision for their pet.
"The line that people draw as to when it is time to let go is very different and it varies between vets, too, in when they will say to the client, `enough is enough - it's time to consider your pet's quality of life'.
"People are definitely more willing to spend more money in a pet's later years now, to buy `extra time'.
"As long as their quality of life is maintained, this is great.
"There are lots of options available now that weren't there just a few years ago."
Money, too, is an issue.
A surgical procedure for a horse might cost upwards of $10,000, a double hip replacement for a dog between $6000 and $8000 and subsequent medication $3 to $4 a day.
If that dog is relatively young, the cost over time becomes even more significant.
Emergency surgery notwithstanding, pets also require regular checks and vaccinations.
According to Consumer NZ, a puppy will cost about $3500 in its first year (that figure includes $900 in day-care fees and estimates the dog's initial purchase price at $450).
A similar analysis on www.thepethub.co.nz ranged from $1000 to $20,000 for the first year (again, doggy day-care is factored in), but the website stresses the true cost is likely to fall somewhere in between.
When Dr Matthews graduated, pet insurance was a "rarity".
Certainly, she did not discuss the option with clients.
Now, she often raises the subject.
Of the providers in New Zealand, most offer 30 days' free cover while people consider their options.
Premium policy prices hover around $300 for cats and $400 for dogs, though "select breeds" cost significantly more.
Jenny Ellenbroek, a director of pet insurer Ellenco, established in New Zealand in 1990, remembers a time when "people laughed at us all the time".
The company has recently enjoyed 50-60% growth in annual policy uptake.
About 5% of New Zealand pets are now insured.
"I think pets are a lot more important to people than they used to be," Mrs Ellenbroek says.
"The main reason we started this was to help people pay those vet bills . . . We have clients ringing up in tears.
"I had one client who took three months to ring up and tell me her pet had passed away."
The closest thing Keith Kirkwood has had to an insurance policy for Amy, his now-blind dog, is a Lotto ticket.
In 2005, he and wife Abby won a third-division prize of $500, which went towards an $1800 operation to remove cataracts from one of Amy's eyes.
Though the procedure was successful, the dog subsequently developed more cataracts, then glaucoma.
As a result, Mr Kirkwood (83) finds he walks less frequently now that his old mate refuses to go more than a hundred metres down the road.
The Portobello section on which he has lived for 70 years has seen many an animal.
As well as dogs and cats, there have been guinea pigs, a possum ("O-Possum"), a rat ("Willy Whiskers") inherited from the local school and a magpie ("Elmer").
As for the aforementioned Romeo, he was relocated from a nearby home and remains to this day, though his friend Juliet lasted just a year.
Mr Kirkwood believes she was stolen.
"One morning we went out to feed them and Juliet was gone, as were a couple of hens. It turns out someone had come at night and taken the duck and the two hens.
"I can't understand why people would do that.
"I just can't kill anything now. When I had a poultry farm, I used to have to kill the hens. Commercially, it didn't pay to keep them longer than a couple of years.
"It didn't affect me the same then, but I don't think I could do it now.
"I had them in cages, which I wouldn't consider now that we know so much about them. I don't like to see birds caged up at all now. Even Elmer the magpie was never kept in a cage.
"She lived on the section and if I went for a walk and took the dog we had at the time, she would come with us and fly from lamppost to lamppost.
"We had to confine her a bit at the end because there were some school kids coming home one day and I could hear one boy saying, `but I don't want her on my head'.
"Anyway, she'd flown down to be friendly. She didn't do any damage to him, but we had a very irate mother visit us."
Pib tales and boarish behaviour
And then there's the pigs.
Asked to comment on the images of pigs in single sow stalls that featured in a television current affairs programme this week, SPCA chief executive Robyn Kippenberger says the organisation "vociferously" opposes the use of farrow crates or sow stalls and points to the fact many farmers in New Zealand do without them.
"There is a place in the middle between a completely intensive practice and a completely extensive (free-range) system, where the finishing is done in barns and all the farrowing is done extensively, in little chalets outside.
"There are also internal systems that allow for farrowing that way.
"I visited a farm that was attached to Oxford University in England and what they were asking was `how could you farm intensively and still look after the needs of the animal?'.
"It's not as if the science isn't there; it's about the will of the industry."
In 2006 the SPCA established an accreditation scheme for piggeries, auditing and approving a range of farms.
"A free-range farm can be as bad as intensive farming if the pigs are not looked after," Mrs Kippenberger says, adding stockmanship is a key ingredient.
"You can't walk off Queen St or the Octagon and expect to be able to farm pigs.
"They are complex, interesting animals and need complex solutions to how they behave. They are high-maintenance.
"Environmental enrichment is a key part of pig farming; if they aren't bored then they won't bite one another's tails or fight."
