http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/7921277/Thousands-of-healthy-dogs-put-down-because-of-rise-in-dangerous-strays.html
By Heidi Blake
7:30AM BST 02 Aug 2010
A third of the 7,866 dogs taken in by the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home last year had to be put down because of an influx of animals which were too aggressive to go to new homes.
The street fashion for dangerous dogs has caused the number of Staffordshire Bull Terriers – or “Staffies” – taken in by the Battersea shelter to rise by 85 per cent since 1996.
Experts said many owners were training the dogs to be so aggressive that they became uncontrollable and had to be abandoned. In some cases owners, saw dogs as being so disposable that they swapped them for MP3 players.
Of the 2,815 dogs put down by Battersea last year, 1,931 were healthy but had to be killed because they were too dangerous to be taken in by new owners.
Battersea, which spent £11 million taking in lost and unwanted dogs last year, only puts a dog down if it is unhealthy or its temperament makes it unmanageable.
But the shelter has been forced to plough hundreds of thousands of pounds into a new behavioural unit set up to retrain uncontrollable dogs in order to avoid a sharp rise in the number that have to be put down.
“Staffies” now account for more than half of the home’s longer term residents – dogs which have to stay at the shelter for up to two years to be rehabilitated.
The scale of the problem emerged in a special investigation for the BBC's Panorama.
Scott Craddock, director of operations at the home, told the programme: “In 1996 we took 396 Staffordshire bull terriers. Last year we took 3,600. For us that’s a huge problem - we can’t actually kennel these dogs with other dogs in many cases. They have to be given an individual kennel. So that has a huge impact on kennel space at the home.
“Battersea is mopping up a lot of the problems that are happening outside of the home. Big society problems; to such an extent that we feel it is time to say enough is enough”, he added The RSPCA, Britain’s biggest animal charity, is under so much pressure from the influx of dangerous strays that it is no longer accepting dogs that are unwanted by their owners.
Tim Wass, the chief officer of the RSPCA inspectorate, said: “Last year, 2009, we killed 533 healthy dogs. And you'll notice I used the word kill there rather than put to sleep or humanely euthanize. There's been enough euphemism, we really need to tell it how it is and we really need to start doing something to prevent it having to happen in the future.”
The animal rights groups and Metropolitan Police have called on Government to step in to stop irresponsible owners abandoning their dogs by implanting the animals with microchips so they can be traced back to their original homes.
Ian McParland, Head of the London Metropolitan Police Status Dogs Unit, said: “We’ve said licensing is a way forward. To actually have an annual licence for dogs where dogs are micro-chipped. And the owners are required every year to keep the details up to date”.
The Government is currently considering a number of measures aimed to curb the rise in irresponsible dog ownership.
(Blake, H., 2010. Thousands of healthy dogs put down because of rise in dangerous strays. The Telegraph [online]. 2nd August 2010. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/7921277/Thousands-of-healthy-dogs-put-down-because-of-rise-in-dangerous-strays.html.
[Accessed on 2nd October 2014].)