Auckland animal shelters trialling buy-now pay-later as one-third of pets unclaimed

Author: Jordan Dunn,
Publish Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2026, 5:00am

Auckland Council is trialling a buy-now pay-later service at its dog pounds as owners grapple with pet costs amid the rising cost-of-living.

In April, it implemented Afterpay at its main three shelters – Manukau, Henderson, and Silverdale, to address the high rates of unclaimed impounded dogs.

After one month of the eight-month trial, 15% of payments at the shelters had been made through the service.

“We’re starting to see an increase in claim rates and a decrease in euthanasia rates. We can’t solely attribute that to the Afterpay trial but we will keep monitoring that,” Regional Shelter Manager Nikki Cripps said.

A report tabled at the April Regulatory Safety Committee showed at-least a third of impounded dogs consistently go unclaimed year-on-year.

It predicted by the end of this financial year, 9,230 dogs would be impounded and 3,173 wouldn’t be claimed.

That would be the fewest dogs unclaimed in at least the past six years.

Cripps said in August 2025 they started looking into ways to break down barriers for owners to claim their dogs - one of which was the cost.

“We’ve been told by multiple dog owners that if this option wasn’t available to them then they wouldn’t have been able to collect their dog.”

According to the Auckland Council website, the cost to reclaim an impounded dog can vary from $93 to $420 depending on the number of prior offences and whether the dog is microchipped and registered.

Cripps said, despite improving access, some owners purposefully chose to abandon their dogs when they were impounded.

“We have seen instances where people take an easier option of just replacing their dog with one they may be able to get with no fees attached.”

The trial was on top of $10 million of additional funding the council had invested into animal management services in the past year.

“This includes increasing the number of staff, expanding shelter capacity and delivering several other initiatives through our Animal Management action plan to address the growing issues,” the report writes.

It also desexed over 1,547 high risk dogs through its community initiatives since March – with it on track to reach 2,000 by the end of the month.

It comes as vet clinics report more customers are using buy-now pay-later services to cope with pet bills.

Nelson Vets owner Brendan Hickman said they started using Afterpay a couple of years ago at the request of some clients and now pet owners used it everyday.

“There’s a case where people get surprised with an injury or some sort of event to their pet and it costs more than just, say, a consultant”.

Hickman said, in a group of 70 independent vet clinics which he was a part of, over 80% were using the service.

While he said the proportion of clients using buy-now pay-later services was small, it was growing.

“Personally I’m not the biggest fan of those schemes but there is certainly a place for them and they’ve certainly helped animals over time.”

The New Zealand Veterinary Association’s companion animal head of veterinary services, Felicity Jeffries, said buy-now pay-later services were also just signs of more modern times.

“Payment plans with your vet, per se, are a lot less common. That is sort of an older fashioned approach. . .A lot of clients are more tech savvy and it seems to be an increasingly normalised part of the modern world to use these payment options.”

Jordan Dunn is a multimedia reporter based in Auckland with a focus on crime, social issues, policing and local issues. He joined Newstalk ZB in 2024 from Radio New Zealand, where he started as an intern out of the New Zealand Broadcasting School.