An Angus dog charity worker has told how he “cried like a bairn” after taking a Staffie to be put down.
The vice-chairman of Angus Help for Abandoned Animals, Ian Robb, was moved to tears as he watched three-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier Bono be put to sleep.
The dog had been with the group for several months, but after snapping at the hand of a volunteer who was trying to feed him a biscuit there was no other option but to have him destroyed.
It is unusual for the charity to have to go to such drastic lengths, but rehoming the animal after such an incident would have left the organisation open to prosecution.
Mr Robb said: “He turned round and bit one of the volunteers who was giving him a biscuit snapping at their hand.
“We had him for around three-and-a-half months and we couldn’t rehabilitate him 100%. He was a totally depressed dog.
“Like all dogs charities we go to a great extent to try to rehome these animals and there will be some occasions where we don’t succeed.
“In the end we had to put Bono down and I was crying like a bairn. I was putting down a healthy dog simply because of the way it was treated in the past.”
The harrowing experience comes as Mr Robb’s petition for tighter controls on the over-breeding of Staffies gathers pace across Scotland.
Earlier this month he and Dr Alison Kennedy travelled to urge Holyrood’s petitions committee to consider clamping down on unlicensed breeders of the dogs, which have become a status symbol among criminals and drug dealers.
At that time Dr Kennedy, chairwoman of Perthshire Abandoned Dogs Society, told MSPs that crippling pressure is being put on animal shelters, as a “crisis in animal welfare” took hold.
Mr Robb said: “The petition committee got in touch with me to say they have now contacted 10 different organisations such as the SSPCA, the Dogs Trust, the dog warden service and a number of local authorities, to get all their figures and views and look at what can be done. It has to move forward quickly.
“I know that in Dundee Brown Street Kennels are nearly full up on Staffies and things are getting desperate. There are Staffies being put down all over Scotland and I know there are a lot of people having to put them down in Fife, although quite often they don’t want to own up to it because it doesn’t look good.
“They are frightened to say that they are doing it because it could affect their business.”
In recent weeks the Angus charity rescued a Staffie away from an Eastern European immigrant worker, who had been abusing his pet.
“He had been kicking it about after he had been drinking,” said Mr Robb. “It shows that some people just don’t care. All the girls who volunteer with us are totally devastated any time we have to put a dog down.”
Staffies have been known for a century as a “nanny dog” because of their love of children and desire to protect them from harm.
Brown Street kennels in Dundee has seen a 56% increase in abandoned Staffies this year, with similar pictures in Fife, Perthshire, Angus and across Scotland. Of the 54 dogs taken in by the Angus branch, 41 were Staffies.