Entering Massey University's Companion Animal 'Hospital' Is A High-Risk & Potentially Lethal Proposition for Your Pets . . . THINK TWICE

MEDIA RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

‘A Lethal Proposition for Family Pets’:
Wild West Practices at New Zealand's Massey University Veterinary ICU

MASTERTON, NZ:

A comprehensive investigative dossier published by the International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE) and The Customer & The Constituent NZ  warns New Zealand's pet owners that entering Massey University's Companion Animal Hospital is a high-risk and potentially lethal proposition for their animals.

With 64 percent of New Zealand households owning one or more pets, the risks documented in this investigation represent a mainstream consumer concern – and especially for the large percentage of the pet-owning community prepared to pay for specialist care that could see their pets referred to what they otherwise assume is an elite, and by extension safe, veterinary care environment.

The exposure alleges an institutional framework where private pets are systematically converted into live training props for students behind closed doors, without owner knowledge or explicit permission.

"This is a facility that is promoted as a world-class veterinary hospital, but what the public is actually getting is an unregulated, unaccountable training mill," says Jordan Kelly, Editor-in-Chief of The Customer & The Constituent NZ and Executive Director of IIIVE.

The investigation, sparked by the death of Kelly's own treasured pet dog, a blind papillon, has resulted in explosive findings – including that private clients’ pets are being covertly taken off the therapeutic treatment programs for which they are admitted, and utilised instead in cruel, invasive and completely owner-unauthorised student training and filming activities. In the case of Kelly’s dog, Harry, who was admitted for a relatively uncomplicated and standard procedure of rehydration following several days of hot weather back in late November, a sudden, inexplicable and later-proven bogus “neurological” diagnosis was presented to Kelly the next day as a reason for his apparently urgently required “euthanasia”.
 
Kelly’s own subsequent investigations determined that Harry had not suffered any sudden “neurological decline” at all; he had been catastrophically overdosed, repeatedly over the course of 15 hours, with a cocktail of sedatives specifically contraindicated for his circumstances, with his prior adverse reaction to the core pharmaceutical in question documented in Massey’s own records. The sedation had been timed to reach its peak effect for invasive student training activities to be conducted – with the production of University filming assets.

Kelly’s own investigation and the substantial, detailed evidence she has amassed, has now seen the Ministry of Primary Industries’ Animal Welfare complex cases unit launch its own formal inquiry.

Key revelations of systemic issues have emerged, including not only the lack of owner authorisation for their pets to be used as live teaching specimens and worse, producing lethal consequences with the abandonment of their prescribed treatment protocols (which Massey bills for in full, regardless), but also misrepresentation of pets’ true conditions (in the case of Kelly’s dog, the fact of his sedation was concealed in order to misrepresent him as in sudden “neurological decline”) to support aggressive coercion for termination under the guise of immediately-required, on-the-spot “euthanasia” – and without the input of any external, independent opinion.

While Kelly has faced substantial, ongoing “stonewalling” of her information-seeking attempts, her six-month persistence in insisting on Harry's Medical Administration Records has had the indirect effect of forcing Chief of Staff Jodie Banner to inadvertently reveal that sedatives like Gabapentin and Prevomax – the heavy, behaviour-altering sedatives apparently used extensively by the ICU and administered to Harry repeatedly and at potentially lethal levels – are completely exempt from mandatory logging in the University's Controlled Drug Register. In Harry's case, the beloved papillon was subject to these unauthorised sedative cocktails – administered repeatedly at potentially lethal levels, in some instances just 26 minutes apart.

"They have built a 'Wild West' environment," says Kelly. "Harry was admitted solely for a straightforward rehydration procedure. Instead, he was subjected to unnecessary, repeated convenience sedations and at catastrophic levels, especially for his specific circumstances. He was then disconnected from, what was by then, his life-essential IV fluids protocol that would have been needed to flush the accumulating toxicity from his system, and utilised as a live teaching specimen in the day’s student ‘teaching’ activities apparently part of Dr Steffi Jalava’s training roster.

Jalava’s misrepresentation of Kelly’s dog after his utilisation in the activities and the associated film productions was given further misrepresentative reinforcement to the shocked owner by a “diagnosis” by Massey neurologist Dr Anita Shea, who conducted her examination of Harry, at Jalava’s request, two hours and 22 minutes after his third catastrophic overdose of the contraindicated Gabapentin – a drug the international veterinary literature specifically warns against performing any such examination of a dog while under the influence of, for its well-known production of false neurological symptomology. These dementia-like symptoms produced by Gabapentin – which Harry was under the massive, cumulative overdosed effect of – were recorded by Shea to support Jalava’s intention to present Harry as “neurologically nonviable” to Kelly, demanding she sign a “euthanasia” authorisation immediately.

Alongside the 342- page evidential dossier Kelly has provided to the MPI investigation team, Kelly sourced all her dog’s relevant previous veterinary records – including those as recent as his full and comprehensive examination and blood tests just 12 days prior to his fatal Massey admission – as clear and provable absence of any sign of “neurological decline”.

Broader Implications

“Aside from the total absence of ethics associated with the ruse Jalava and Shea pulled off to ensure Harry was neatly and conveniently disposed of after their utilisation of him such that no outside vet would advise me of his true i.e. sedated NOT neurologically impaired condition, these recording loopholes also effectively mean there is zero provable oversight into who is administering these drugs, at what frequency, or on whose authority . . . and most importantly of all, for what underlying objective."

The dossier heavily critiques the leadership of Massey's Veterinary School under Dean Jon Huxley – whose background is strictly in dairy cattle and not complex small animal or canine pharmacology – with sourced communications from January 30 between Huxley and Veterinary Council of New Zealand Chief Executive Iain McLachlan, having been followed immediately by aggressive legal threats to silence Kelly.

The conflict reaches far beyond New Zealand's borders, engaging three major global regulatory bodies: the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) in the UK, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), and the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC) – the bodies that provide the accreditation approvals that underpin Massey's international student recruiting campaigns.

"Ironically and alarmingly, Dean Jon Huxley sits as an international auditor on the RCVS International Visitation Committee, inspecting and approving the operational and ethical standards of overseas universities," Kelly points out. "The hypocrisy is as monumental as it is dangerous," she says. "We are asking Dean Huxley publicly: are these chaotic, unmonitored and lethal conditions common among the international universities you audit? Do you give them a pass, too?"
 
In a further demonstration of the structural conflicts of interest permeating Massey's accreditation framework, Professor Jan Thomas – Massey's Vice-Chancellor from January 2017 to January 2026 i.e. during which the Harry Kelly atrocity occurred (November 30 – December 1, 2025) – takes up the position of Chair of the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC), one of the three agencies accrediting the Massey facility, effective 1 July 2026.

Kelly says it's on the basis of these global committee approvals that institutions like Massey enjoy continuously renewed academic "accreditations" and keep their lucrative – and especially, international – student fees rolling in.

Kelly asks whether New Zealand's referring veterinarians are being kept completely in the dark about these systemic risks, while they continue to routinely send their clients' pets into a facility that maintains absolutely no independent internal complaints process – operating only a loop that apparently moves between legal threats and a collusive industry regulator.

"Or, with a large proportion of New Zealand veterinarians themselves graduates of the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital (known as its Companion Animal Hospital to the general fee-paying public), are they already aware of what really goes on there and the culture that enables it?"

Other pet owners have come forward with accounts of similar experiences – that Kelly has now published – at Massey's Companion Animal Hospital, suggesting the practices exposed here are systemic rather than exceptional.

Information Withholding & Evasion

When exposed, the university's internal defence mechanism relies on an evasive information gatekeeping operation, headed by Chief of Staff, Jodie Banner.

IIIVE's investigation documents a clear pattern of Banner and the institution's Legal and Governance department ignoring, stalling, altering, reframing, and narrowing the scope of statutory OIA and Privacy Act requests.

"The latest antic is a particularly telling one," says Kelly. "I requested under the Official Information Act the specific institutional records, Animal Ethics Committee registrations, and internal risk communications that authorised the transition of my dog from a patient into a teaching resource. That resulted in what they hoped I wouldn't notice was a critical sleight of hand – the reclassification of my OIA request as a Privacy Act submission, the effect of which is to dramatically shrink their disclosure obligations and allow them to shield the very institutional records I was seeking, on the basis that they are not my 'personal information'."

Records Manipulation & Falsification

The investigation has also uncovered active records manipulation.

Critical digital system audit logs – designed, in a clinical environment, to act as the permanent footprint showing who accesses or alters a patient's files – were the subject of strategic entry scrubs two days after Harry's death, assumedly to conceal non-compliant overnight interventions and unauthorised student activities.

A formal criminal complaint has been filed with the New Zealand Police.

The dossier also provides evidence of fraudulent posthumous billing inflation, as well as for services not rendered e.g. life-essential IV fluids and 24-hour intensive vitals monitoring during the exact periods those services were actively disconnected so Harry could be utilised as a training prop.

‘After-Care’ Atrocities

The human cost of this institutional stonewalling is laid bare in an explosive, one-hour audio recording embedded within the published dossier. Following weeks of total silence from Massey executives, Kelly recorded her real-time phone call to the university administration as she attempted to extract information about Harry's ashes.

The recording demonstrates the cruel treatment of a still-in-shock and deeply grieving pet-owner client as she unsuccessfully endeavours to extract vital information from staff openly entertaining themselves with her distress.

Late-Night Trolling by Anonymous Senders with Apparent Direct Access to Massey’s Clinical Records

In the face of Kelly's findings and subsequent public revelations, Kelly became the target of regular, ongoing late-night trolling and taunting regarding Harry's treatment and termination, with the anonymous senders making no secret of their direct access to the records held by Massey.

"When a public university loses control of its data and its personnel resort to covert, late-night digital intimidation, you are looking at an institution in a state of total administrative collapse," says Kelly.

"Management has seemingly turned a blind eye to rogue employees breaching Privacy laws and using their own defensive opinions as anonymous digital weaponry in a desperate bid to achieve the silence the Dean's legal threats have been unable to achieve."

Dean Jon Huxley and Massey University’s new Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter were last week sent a comprehensive list of 23 critical questions related to each of the multiple components of this ongoing and increasingly high-profile matter that is attracting growing international attention. No acknowledgement has been received.

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SUMMARY OF CORE COMPONENT & KEY BACKGROUND ISSUES

 
Clinical Bait-and-Switch:

Private pets admitted for even simple, standard procedures like rehydration face the risk of being subjected to unauthorised "convenience" sedations – and, as in Harry's case, specifically contraindicated (per Massey's own prior records) and each dose catastrophic in its own right, with some overdoses further potentiated and administrations forced just 26 minutes apart – before being disconnected from their paid-for protocols and covertly converted into live specimens for invasive student training procedures and video production.

Manufactured "Neurological Decline" & Coerced Euthanasia: 

The international veterinary literature clearly demonstrates that Gabapentin – the primary sedative administered to Harry at catastrophic, repeated overdose levels and in direct contraindication to a dog with renal impairment (as Harry’s records clearly documented) – produces neurological symptoms that mimic dementia and cognitive decline. Despite this being well-documented, "neurologist" Dr Anita Shea examined Harry at the peak of his pharmacological sedation with the sedative and used the resulting misrepresentation as the basis for a sudden and otherwise entirely inexplicable "neurological decline" diagnosis – one contradicted by every piece of Harry’s independent veterinary evidence, including records from his primary vet just 12 days prior.

This false diagnosis was then deployed during Dr Steffi Jalava’s intensive two-hour coercion of Kelly to have her sign a pre-produced euthanasia authorisation form with a different staff member’s name on it.

Kelly repeatedly protested that Harry's dramatically changed presentation in just 15 hours made no clinical sense. No opportunity was given for an independent veterinary assessment. Massey staff knew that any external veterinarian would have immediately recognised Harry as a dog under heavy, undisclosed sedation – not one experiencing genuine neurological decline.

The Execution: 

Once Kelly's resistance was finally broken after two hours of coercion, the manner of Harry's termination was itself an "unclinical, deeply unethical and subhuman disgrace", In Kelly's own words.

For a second time since the coercion had begun, her catastrophically sedated little dog suddenly reared up strongly on his hind legs (clearly, in retrospect, attempting to break through the effects of the sedatives) and on this second occasion, as he sensed Jalava and her assistant approaching, had begun screaming.

Despite Jalava knowing that Kelly was in a self-declared state of sleep-deprivation (also as documented on Harry’s admission notes from the previous night) and had no idea of Jalava's use of sedatives on Harry, Jalava immediately ordered Kelly to pull him flat to his stomach, ripping the cap off the Pentobarbitone-filled syringe with her teeth and injecting him before Kelly could properly process the implications of his very physical, very strong, and distressing reaction to her.

Lethal Opportunism with No External Accountability: 

Harry Kelly was admitted to Massey's Companion Animal Hospital as a direct walk-in patient on a Sunday night, with no external referring veterinarian acting as an intermediary on that occasion.

This removed the single most important external check on Massey's clinical decisions – a referring vet who could have been contacted, who would have known Harry's history, and who would have been asked to verify the sudden and otherwise inexplicable neurological decline diagnosis before any euthanasia decision was made. Massey knew this. Not only was no second opinion offered or suggested – in direct contravention of the Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ) Code of Professional Conduct for Veterinarians — the logistics of that afternoon and the intensity of the coercion specifically prevented it.

Massey's Own Written Denial – Directly Contradicted by Its Own Videos: 

In a formal OIA response dated May 13, 2026, Massey University's Chief of Staff Jodie Banner stated in writing: "All activity involving Harry Kelly was undertaken solely for treatment purposes for the benefit of Harry Kelly and not for research or undergraduate training purposes."

This categorical denial is directly and irrefutably contradicted by Massey's own cell phone videos, which demonstrate student activity being conducted on a catastrophically sedated dog including in a state of severe pharmacologically-induced collapse, in direct defiance of his owner's often-repeated, explicit written and verbal instructions that he was never to be used as a teaching or training resource.

Furthermore, the extensive, condition-unrelated invasive procedures conducted on Harry by the "neurologist" Dr Anita Shea – apparently as part of detailed student demonstrations, while Harry was at the peak of his state of induced and potentially fatal pharmacological collapse, and involving demonstrably dangerous and high-risk handling – were self-evidently not undertaken "solely for the benefit of Harry Kelly."

Exploitation of Pets' Disabilities: 

Harry, a blind papillon, should under all veterinary care standards have been treated with extra care and consideration.

Instead, his blindness was additionally the subject of specific and extraordinarily cruel exploitation by teaching staff for the benefit of final-year students, as demonstrated in one of the admitted-to eight videos (with only two released and the remaining six withheld) produced by the facility.

Missing Diagnostic Records: 

Intensive vitals monitoring (as is normal for an ICU environment) was maintained throughout Harry's admission on November 30, showing a perfectly viable and robust dog, and confirming his need for nothing other than the rehydration for which he was admitted. Yet no IDEXX diagnostic or monitoring data exists for December 1 – the specific day on which Massey staff's repeated sedative overdosing of him would have reached its peak of intensity and cumulative toxicity, the documented clinical collapse, and the documented student utilisation activities.

In eventually responding to Kelly's repeated questions, now in OIA form, and in refusing the request, Chief of Staff Jodie Banner's justification was that "no such information exists."

All Veterinary Records Funnelled through Massey’s Legal & Governance Department Before Release:

None of Harry Kelly’s veterinary records have been permitted to come directly from the veterinary facility where they were recorded and held. All have been required to spend further time in the possession of Massey’s Legal & Governance department before release to Kelly.

Every release of Harry's clinical records and associated files – including his Clinical Summary (which Kelly maintains is riddled with falsehoods and altered and added to posthumously) – has been preceded by review and processing by Massey's Legal and Governance department before being belatedly released to her. Hardly standard practice for the release of a client's pet's medical records, this is the operational footprint of an institution managing legal liability.

The Invoice That Cracked the Case: 

Kelly discovered the truth about what had happened to Harry only two weeks later when opening the invoice Massey emailed her after Harry's termination – having only handed her a total amount on an EFTPOS terminal at the time and point of payment.

The itemised invoice later revealed that Harry had been given Gabapentin – for him, as known by Massey, specifically contraindicated – and in what appeared to have been potentially lethal and repeated amounts, some as closely spaced as just 26 minutes apart.

Refused Disclosure of Identities & Regulatory Obstruction: 

Six months (and ongoing) of total refusal by Massey to release the names of ALL clinical staff involved – enforcing a blanket redaction across all medical records and position titles – directly violates international regulatory expectations. Kelly’s own investigations finally revealed the name of the primary veterinarian and the clinician who fronted the ruse and coercion, and who is believed to have also been directly responsible for his utilisation as a live training aid and teaching specimen: Dr Steffi Jalava. The neurologist’s (Dr Anita Shea) identity was disclosed only last week. The names of all other staff – including licensed staff – remain withheld.

Head of Professional Conduct Ky Richardson of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) (UK), one of the Massey veterinary facility’s own accrediting agencies, has confirmed that registered veterinarians are expected to provide their names to clients, and that under no circumstances should a client be prevented from raising a professional conduct concern with the regulator – which has been the direct effect of Massey’s suppression of clinicians’ names.

Not only does Massey's total administrative black-out explicitly strip away consumer rights and block regulatory oversight, but in addition to the university hiding these identities to systematically insulate its staff from professional accountability, it has raised a critical and urgent question of concern to all referring veterinarians: Is the ICU operating overnight shifts without any licensed veterinarians physically on duty?

Rigged Regulator: 

The investigation exposes a structurally and politically conjoined relationship between the university and the Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ). Industry-published data reveals it operates as an industry protection mechanism rather than an overseer, maintaining a microscopic 1.5 percent prosecution rate across all consumer complaints over a 24-year period – and with, often, those "prosecutions" amounting to nothing more than "training recommendations".

Criminal Notice: Records Falsification and Evidence Tampering:

Internal digital audit logs of Harry Kelly's clinical file were manually altered after his death. Specifically, the recorded time of death in the Patient Change Log was overwritten with 0:00:00 – a nonsensical value that renders the entry invisible to standard audit searches and investigation tools. This was a deliberate act. It is illegal under Sections 258 and 260 of the Crimes Act 1961, carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. A formal criminal complaint has been filed with New Zealand Police under report OR-2484821N.

Venter and Huxley have been formally put on notice that any subsequent entry into the back-end database to further modify, overwrite or delete data trails constitutes separate, additional criminal acts, regardless of any internal or external regulatory manoeuvring.

Fraudulent Posthumous Billing: 

Kelly's published forensic analysis of Harry's clinical and financial records shows manual posthumous billing inflation across a number of items.

Formal Demand for Answers: 

Six months into Kelly's continued attempts for information release and answers, and Massey's persistent evasion of numerous key issues, Kelly has finally, on June 11, 2026, put 23 written and published questions directly to Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter and Dean of Veterinary Science Jon Huxley, and copied these to the three international agencies providing accreditation to the facility – the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS, UK), the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), and the Australasian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC). The questions, published in full,  address the core components of the case.

Capital Squeeze vs Legal Warfare: 

In the face of its own significant and ongoing institutional debts, and its recent department and curriculum closures, staff redundancies, and asset fire sales, Veterinary School Dean Jon Huxley (a dairy cow but not small animal or emergency veterinary care expert, to be noted) has threatened Kelly with legal action for speaking out.

An OIA was sent to Chief of Staff Jodie Banner requesting all external legal services’ costs over the six months-to-date of what appears to be continuing, intensive monitoring and profiling of Kelly’s progressively and ongoing published investigation findings – but Banner has shifted the scope of this to produce a non-answer. A more tightly-worded OIA has subsequently been submitted with the response awaited, or indeed even any acknowledgment.

Privacy Act Breaches & Targeted Cyber-Harassment: 

Following the launch of Kelly's investigation and the commencement of her published coverage (as a consumer affairs advocate), she has been the subject of a series of persistent late-night digital trolling of an increasingly cruel and taunting nature from parties (such as "lol@lol", and "Hugh Janus"), each of whom appear to have, and in some cases make overt their direct access to her pet's Massey veterinary records.

Feedback from Other Massey Pet-Owner Clients:

Kelly’s published dossier has attracted revelations from other Massey Companion Animal Hospital clients confirming that Harry Kelly’s fate is far from an isolated case. Tellingly, they have conveyed their fear of speaking out, for reasons which include Massey’s heavy-handed legal silencing approach, possible ramifications regarding the treatment and outcomes of pets still in Massey’s “care”, and severe, ongoing trauma.

MPI Investigation: An investigation by the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries’ Animal Welfare complex cases unit was initiated in May and is continuing.

FORTHCOMING RELEASES:

This media release is the first in a Five-Part series.

Part Two: Drugs . . . No Records Required: 

With implications for all pets admitted to the Massey facility, Part Two will present a deep-dive investigation into what appears to have been the subsequent, further, undisclosed sedation of Harry to ensure the success of the fraudulent "neurological decline" diagnosis upon which the coercion of Kelly to sign “euthanasia” papers was based . . . and will include the recent inadvertent confirmation by Massey's Chief of Staff Jodie Banner that the sedatives used to repeatedly overdose Harry Kelly are entirely exempt from mandatory recording in the Controlled Drug Register.

Photographic evidence will be laid out demonstrating Harry's dramatically deteriorated state during the 7-hour gap between the last documented dose and Kelly's return to the facility whereupon she was presented with the "euthanasia" demand.

Part Three:  The Yuck Truck Despatch . . . And Where Did Harry End Up? 

Part Three will document the still-unknown fate of Harry Kelly's remains – including the audio recording of Kelly's one-hour phone call attempting to locate her dog's ashes,

Massey's written confirmation that no electronic records of any kind were kept regarding instructions or his dispatch to a cremation service, and the photographic evidence of his final departure from the facility in the back of a station wagon beside a set of scales, a bucket containing what appears to be possibly biological waste materials in a strangely-shaped thick black plastic bag, and other debris.

Part Three will also include an exposé of the international pet cremation industry . . . one of the most invisible industries in modern history. The 64 percent of Kiwi householders who own pets need to know exactly what happens to them after they have entrusted them, posthumously, to their local clinic, which in turn entrusts the "after-care" of their beloved pets to a largely invisible pet cremation company.

Part Four: It’s All One Big Club (& the Pet-Owning Public Isn’t In It)

The extraordinary, built-in, structural overlaps between Massey University and the very agencies who audit and provide its accreditation credentials, and those who are mandated to regulate, this institution –including the appointment of Massey's own outgoing Vice-Chancellor to chair one of its three international accrediting bodies.

Part Five: Who Knew?

Part Five of the investigation will move into the broader structural accountability questions that must be addressed:

What parties – managerial, administrative, and clinical – knew, at the individual level, what was occurring behind closed doors with private clients' pets? The coverage will examine why internal personnel failed to speak out, the institutional mechanisms used to enforce compliance and silence within the veterinary teaching hospital, and whether any internal whistleblowers actively attempted to raise alerts regarding non-compliant clinical practices.

Could this be a precedent-setting expose that potentially reveals undisclosed teaching practices whereby other veterinary academic establishments around the world also utilise private fee-paying clients’ pets in this same covert manner?

ENDS.

Media Contact: 

Jordan Kelly

Editor-in-Chief, The Customer & The Constituent NZ 

Executive Director, International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE)

Full dossier & published investigation: 
https://www.thecustomer.co.nz/harry  

https://www.thecustomer.co.nz/always-the-latest-here-massey-companion-animal-hospital-s-torture-killing-of-harry-kelly-the-whole-story

https://www.iiive.org/massey-universitys-abuse-killing-of-harry-kelly-case-1