Poor dog

[road hog]

There must have been other options ,

disgusted ,

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/ab...

[jjohnson23]

The bullet should have been saved for the who left it tied up.
Didn't even have the decency to dump it near a animal shelter.

[zarjaz1991]

What are they supposed to do though, if it's aggressive and violent?

[Boosted LS1]

That's bks. I could have befriended it in 5, 10 or 60 minutes. It could have been befriended by somebody. Dogs need companions.

[hkz286]

zarjaz1991 said:

What are they supposed to do though, if it's aggressive and violent?

I dunno, anything else?

[camshafted]

It's a desperately sad story. It's described as a German Shepherd type dog, but it's huge - a Leonberger perhaps?

I am sure there is something someone could have done, however the RSPCA and vets on the scene both agreed that the kindest thing would be to kill it.

Really hope it does have a chip on it and the relevant authorities can try and trace its history but you have to suspect that it's unlikely whoever kept it would have been in any way shape or form a responsible person.

[Batleyred]

It's a caucasain ovachakra

It is cropped as well, most likely from Russia. It will be chipped if it came through customs at Calais etc. Only problem is if the owner never changed details to their name meaning the dog would be registered in a foreign country.

I microchip and the amount of people on my petlog account who never change to the details, very frustrating.

Poor dog.

[camshafted]

Batleyred said:

It's a caucasain ovachakra

It is cropped as well, most likely from Russia. It will be chipped if it came through customs at Calais etc. Only problem is if the owner never changed details to their name meaning the dog would be registered in a foreign country.

I microchip and the amount of people on my petlog account who never change to the details, very frustrating.

Poor dog.

I did wonder if it might be an Ovcharka - so sad.

If it was being particularly aggressive then you do wonder if it could have been rehabilitated what with the breed's natural temperament.

Batleyred - we discussed the Ovcharka on the 'Post pics of your dog' thread and you pointed out how in the wrong hands they're a dangerous dog. Wonder if, on this occasion, someone thought they were getting a big cuddly bear and didn't do their research on the breed...

[SGirl]

Is it really so surprising that the dog was aggressive when approached? It was tied up and helpless when a bunch of blokes turned up and tried to approach it. What else was it supposed to do? It was probably terrified.

Whoever tied it up wants shooting, too. As does the person who gave the order for it to be shot.

Sorry to refer to the dog as "it", I don't know whether it was male or female.

[road hog]

The police have now received "40000" complaints and a call to investigate .

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/n...


nb the gazette site is poor (loads of pop ups)

[Prof Prolapse]

The animal was abused, broken, and terrified. The police prevented the poor animal from being drugged, confined, then after a drawn out process, almost certainly being killed anyway.

Any reasonable person could see the police sought and followed professional advice, then acted based on what they believed was a balance of the animal's and public interest.

"One has been a poor spectator of life if one has not witnessed the hand - that kills from mercy."

[Autopilot]

SGirl said:

Is it really so surprising that the dog was aggressive when approached? It was tied up and helpless when a bunch of blokes turned up and tried to approach it. What else was it supposed to do? It was probably terrified.

Whoever tied it up wants shooting, too. As does the person who gave the order for it to be shot.

Sorry to refer to the dog as "it", I don't know whether it was male or female.

I'm friends with a chap who runs a training place for protection / security dogs and among other things, he also does assessments for his local police force where dogs have been taken away as they've been deemed dangerous. I once asked him the same thing, how can he fairly assess a dog held in kennels, scared and not knowing what the hell is going on. He said he didn't, he'd always take the dog from the kennels and do the assessment in neutral territory and give the dog the best chance as most dogs would fail under kennel conditions.

At the training ground where we used to do Schutzhund, he once had a guy come over with his Staffy so they could work on some fear aggression issues. As soon as anybody got within 15 feet of the man, the dog would kick off, I'd never seen a dog go that ballistic before. Within 10 minutes he'd taken the dog off the guy and was walking it around on the lead. By the end of a thirty minute session, we took it in turns to walk the dog around. This was obviously early days and lots of work going forwards was required, but it shows that a dog that nobody could get near, in the right hands can be turned around fairly quickly.

I used to wear the sleeve and work with sports and security dogs so very comfortable around dogs. I didn't want to get anywhere near the Staffy!!!!

I don't know all the details about the circumstances from the news article, but I wouldn't be surprised if the dog was set up for failure in the way it was handled. While I've worked with a lot of dogs, I'm not a professional and I don't know the best way to handle the situation in the news article. What I would have done would have been to get everybody to go away and leave me to it, just me and the dog. I don't know if this approach would have worked or not, I never met the dog, but I'd pretty much guarantee a group of people stood around an already scared dog tethered to a post would have made it nigh on impossible to get near!!

[Blue383]

It does look like an Ovcharka. They're a very large dog (80kg or so) and really need very specialist handling from experienced owners. They can be great dogs if socialised properly but they have size and a personality that can be both dominant and possessive.
As a leonberger fan I've seen increased numbers of 'imposterbergers' coming through from ill advised breeding.

They may both be big brown dogs with black masks but they are chalk and cheese personality wise. Wish people wouldn't buy dogs that they can't take proper care off. What happened here is not the dogs fault.

[camshafted]

If there are more and more Ovcharka and Ovcharka-like dogs coming to the UK or being bred, then you do wonder if the authorities should take a look at ownership.

I'm anti-BSL to an extent. I don't think dogs should be banned based on the way they look, but I am in favour of people needing a licence for particular breeds of dogs. The Ovcharka would be one of them.

[Blue383]

Theres defiantly something going on with this sort of breed at the moment. I just had a look over at pets4homes and there are 13 sets of pups for sales as Caucasian/Ovcharka/cross breed dogs for sale. Compare this with one one litter of Leos and one litter of Pyrenees.

Now I adore giant breeds but I really don't see why you would want an ovcharka unless it was a genuine working dog carrying out guarding duties. Its just not fair to the dogs to put them in a situation that they're not suited to.

There must responsible ovcharka owners out there. Am I being unfair?

[camshafted]

BatleyRed seems like a responsible Ovcharka owner - he knows the breed.

Thankfully I can't see them appearing on South London estates like badly bred/trained bull breeds - they're just too big!

As much as I hate meddling politicians, I do think they need to look at animal-selling websites, which make getting hold of certain breeds far easier.

And while many sellers are decent humans, sites like Gumtree and Pets4Homes encourage unscrupulous scumbags to use females as breeding machines and others to pick up dogs for free or on the cheap so they can be used for fighting / baiting.

[bexVN]

A vet nurse friend has just been caring for a puppy one in her practice (I don't what was wrong with it) First one I have known of in our area

Tbh I dread giant breed dogs, having to come in for treatment. Not because I worry they may be aggressive (though this particular breed this could well be a concern!) but purely because they are physically so so hard to do anything with when you need to treat them!

I just hope that this poor dog was genuinely a danger in any situation, rather than killed through a rushed decision. A lot of dogs in its situation would have been freaked out and potentially been snappy etc does not mean they are actually aggressive just very frightened .

Some of my favourite patients over the years have been giant breeds, Leonbergers are a favourite of mine.

Edited by bexVN on Thursday 25th January 09:38