Panorama

[celeste]

Any one else watch it last night ?

I thought it was well done, I liked the way the presenter made a point of saying the dogs who were id'd as being " of type" weren't aggressive, but the policeman's comment that the dog they were looking at could be a nightmare in the wrong hands a bit annoying, you can say that for any breed surely, not just a Pit type.

I can see why Battersea have to be so picky about dogs who are put through for adoption, with so many Staffies coming through their doors what else can they do ?, although the dog who was shown being tested and who failed, to me, wasn't that aggressive, if that had been Daisy they wouldn't even have got her that close to the other dog without her kicking off, also, it was another entire male that they used as a stooge dog, a test a lot of normally mild mannered entire males would fail, poor lad

.......and hands up who wanted to choke the numpty with the litter ?, what is the solution to people like him ?

[Laura_E]

it was another entire male that they used as a stooge dog, a test a lot of normally mild mannered entire males would fail, poor lad

 

That was exactly what I thought

 

The thing is, Battersea have hundreds of paid staff, acres of land and state of the art facilities. They receive MILLIONS in donations each year and even have a waiting list for volunteers of approx 1 year! How many other charities would give their front teeth to be in the same situation? I'm sure charities like the wonderful Doris Banham, who were also featured on the programme, certainly would. But they don't have the same profile as Battersea and their dogs aren't rehomed within 6 weeks, which is the average stay for a dog at Battersea, yet they continue to take the dogs that the bigger charities won't take because they really are their last hope.

 

Obviously the real problem is the irresponsible scum bags that breed their dogs indiscriminately for all the wrong reasons, but it is naive to think that dogs that have such bad starts in life aren't going to have a few problems.

 

The statistics were rather sobering. Last year they rehomed 5000 dogs, but destroyed nearly 3000.

 

 

 

 

[cycas]

There's a statement from Battersea about the assessment process here :

http://www.battersea.org.uk/about_us/whats_new/panorama_programme.html

 

"In the case of Brandy, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier shown on tonight’s Panorama programme, Battersea’s team of behavourists carried out extensive assessment, behavioural work and reassessment of the dog over a period of time. The programme shows only a snapshot of this work done to help this dog and does not detail any of the more obvious signs of real and consistent aggression shown by Brandy towards other dogs. This is regrettable, as the risks of rehoming this dog would have been clearly obvious to viewers"

 

I disagree that other rescues would love to be in Battersea's position : Battersea have the pound contract for London, so unlike most other rescues, they cannot turn dogs away. It must be phenomenally hard to work there.

 

It's relatively easy for a small rescue to take a dog aggressive/reactive dog - one dog - and turn him around. But to do it for thousands of them every year? I don't know. I'm not making that judgement cos I've not had to actually do it.

 

The blame should be on the people that breed the dogs without any idea how to do it properly, that raise them without socialising them properly, and then dump them when they are no longer wanted. Anything else is a distraction from that.

[Kats inc]

I watched it and thought it was good although I wailed my heart out when the old staffy boy was pts I do understand why they showed it because people need to see the nitty gritty horribleness and reality of it all.

 

My issue with it really was that I suspect the main audience of the programme was people like us,the ones that care already.People like the owner of the staffy mum with pups just don't watch programmes like Panorama and the message is therefore so much harder to get across

 

I looked at those pups and wondered how many would end up in places like Battersea as dogs being pts for aggression in a few short years.T'is very sad this current trend for 'tough dogs'.But to get the message across to the types of people that own them is incredibly difficult.

 

I also wondered if that bloke declared his earnings from those pups to the benefits office I suspect not! Big way to make extra money in my experience with both pups and kittens.

[griff]

i didn't see all of it..... i saw that poor little black staff being pts on the floor of a garage/storeroom

[Sarah B]

The blame should be on the people that breed the dogs without any idea how to do it properly, that raise them without socialising them properly, and then dump them when they are no longer wanted. Anything else is a distraction from that.

 

Exactly. I have been nagging the Beeb to do this programme for a couple of years - hopefully it has hit home with some people. I am sick of some people who have said to me "Oh I couldn't watch it, far too upsetting" however this is real life, it happens every day, and IMHO people need to watch this no matter how upsetting it is (and I won't lie, I cried) because information is power, and something like this will not be forgotten, and hopefully it will make people think.

[Laura_E]

I disagree that other rescues would love to be in Battersea's position : Battersea have the pound contract for London, so unlike most other rescues, they cannot turn dogs away. It must be phenomenally hard to work there.

 

It's relatively easy for a small rescue to take a dog aggressive/reactive dog - one dog - and turn him around. But to do it for thousands of them every year? I don't know. I'm not making that judgement cos I've not had to actually do it.

 

The blame should be on the people that breed the dogs without any idea how to do it properly, that raise them without socialising them properly, and then dump them when they are no longer wanted. Anything else is a distraction from that.

 

There are still pounds within some of the London boroughs that deal with their own strays, including the one that I live in. The Mayhew Animal Home also operates as the pound for Brent (covering parts of Shepherds Bush where dog fighting is rife). The councils that do have a contract with Battersea pay them (quite rightly) for the service and they also receive funding from the MET.

 

I completely agree with you that the blame should lie with the idiots that breed their dogs over and over again and then sell their offspring without any regard for their welfare. Or even worse, the ones that breed them specifically for fighting or as 'weapon dogs' (which is a term I hate). It's a shame that we don't apply the same rules to aggressive people as we do to aggressive dogs- it would save society a lot of problems.

 

However, both the reporter and staff member stated that Brandy was a lovely dog with people, just not other dogs. If he was an out of control rabid dog that was displaying aggression to both dogs and people, it would be a different story. Loads of rescues rehome dogs that don't like other canines and find them responsible homes that are willing to put the necessary precautions in place.

 

I wonder if smaller dogs are also put to sleep if they fail the dog aggression assessment. I can imagine that a lot of entire JRT's would have reacted in a much more aggressive way to another un-neutered dog.

 

But I don't think it helps when they make it so difficult for people to adopt from them in the first place. When I went to them a number of years ago to adopt a dog I was told that they wouldn't rehome to a person that worked full-time, even though I was willing to put measures in place to ensure that the dog wasn't left for longer than a few hours at a time. My grandma's friend was turned away because she was deemed to be too old at 68! Some of my friends have also been turned away because they have children. It makes me wonder what types of homes they do rehome to.

 

Unless you are retired or a stay at home parent, most of us have to work. There can only be a very small minority of people that are privilleged enough to not have to work, apart from long-term unemployed people receiving benefits- but then how do they afford the appropriate pet care?

 

Of course, it's not just Battersea that expects you to juggle fire whilst walking on water before you can adopt from them, our local Dogs Trust and RSPCA centre are just as picky. And whilst I appreciate that rescues should ensure that their dogs go to good and responsible homes, I fail to see how it is better to put a dog to sleep (or leave them languishing in kennels) rather than rehome them into a loving and caring home where they may spend a few hours alone each day, but for the rest of the time will be a much loved member of the family.

 

I do think that the programme will be a real eye opener to people though, as 99% of the public haven't got a clue what goes on in UK pounds. Most people get upset to see a dog in rescue kennels- but as we all know, they are the lucky ones.

[sanrossscot]

I haven't watched this yet,however I suspect that places like Battersea and Dog's Trust have more of a blanket policy towards rehoming mainly due to their size and the sheer number of dogs passing through the doors. Smaller rescues can possibly be a bit more flexible

Edited August 3, 2010 by sanrossscot

[cycas]

For me, those are all aspects of the same problem. If there weren't such large numbers of dogs to deal with, it would be easier to provide an individual assessment of each potential home and each dog - which is why the smaller rescues are able to do that. Because the biggies are dealing with such numbers, rather than trying to get to know thousands of owners well every year, they put in rules to eliminate the people who are statistically most likely to return the dog, and I can't entirely blame them for that.

 

I don't think they are really putting dogs like Brandy to sleep just because of what looked like relatively minor dog aggression : so far as I can see, they are doing it because there are too many dogs. They can't turn them away, so they have to put some to sleep. If you have to put a thousand dogs to sleep, you have to use some criteria to choose which will make it, I guess, and it makes sense to pick the ones that will take months or years to find homes first, if you have to choose any dog.

 

We've had not a few people call Oldies with dogs which came from Battersea, because Battersea have been honest with them and said 'yes, we'll take them back, but if we do, then their chances are not good'. There was one lady who had cancer and was going into hospital and had two not-good-with -other-dogs elderly GSDs that she loved dearly. We couldnt' find anyone to take them, they went to Battersea and from what the owner said to me, were probably put to sleep pretty quickly. I never found out, but her voice on the phone stays with me.

 

I'm sure Brandy would have been a fabulous dog in the right home, but so would all the others in those rows and rows of kennels. I wouldn't want to see Brandy spend the next three years, the next six years maybe, in one of those kennels, and I don't think it's actually that unlikely that he could have done so. I guess they could use their money to build more kennels, hire more workers, expand their capacity and expand it again, so they could keep more of the dogs that are likely to take months or years to find a suitable home - but I'm not sure that it would be a good thing if they did that, really - would it not just encourage more irresponsible owners to breed, knowing that their dogs will be 'safely' cared for in endless ranks of kennels, when they get bored of them?

 

The whole situation is horrible.

[Mrs Mop]

Exactly. I have been nagging the Beeb to do this programme for a couple of years - hopefully it has hit home with some people. I am sick of some people who have said to me "Oh I couldn't watch it, far too upsetting" however this is real life, it happens every day, and IMHO people need to watch this no matter how upsetting it is (and I won't lie, I cried) because information is power, and something like this will not be forgotten, and hopefully it will make people think.

 

 

Why should I watch a program like that knowing that I may be extremely upset over it of course it is real life, I know what goes on, I don't need to watch a program like that to tell me.

 

3 of my dogs came straight from a pound, 2 were foster dogs for a rescue, 2 were in bad condition and 1 needed tumours taken off before she came here.

 

If you want to sit and watch programs like that, that is up to you but don't expect me to because I won't.

[khanu]

I haven't watched it yet, but thought I'd comment anyway....

 

There are a finite number of kennels that battersea has (spread over a number of site, but still a finite number). If they are taking in 1000 dogs a month (that's what I've seen a representative saying on DP), then that is 1000 dogs to house each month. If they are only re-homing 5000 a year, well that's a awful lot of surplus dogs. If a dog is dog aggressive then that means it needs a kennel to itself, quite probably needs to be exercised alone etc. Housing dogs together ultimately means you can keep more of them. I would think they simply can't afford the space necessary to keep that many dog aggressive dogs.

 

I have a dog aggressive dog, he requires management and is a work in progress, he can live with other dogs (obviously since we have 5) but it takes a long time and careful management of situations and meetings for him to become ok. We've had Talyn for 4months now and there are still certain situations that I know have to be managed. Battersea just simply can't do that, the numbers are too big. With finite resources you can only help a finite number of dogs. And that's without considering how re-homable the dog may be. An aggressive dog (whether to people or other dogs or whatever) is a big commitment. At times it's exhausting, you just can't simply rock up anywhere with them, you have to consider the minutiae of details, because to them it isn't small or insignificant. Re-homing that type of dog is just as big a responsibility, and there are far fewer homes out there for an aggressive dog than for a non aggressive dog. At the end it comes down to a numbers game. You have this many spaces, fewer if dogs have to be housed alone, you have this many potential homes, a very small number who may be suitable for an aggressive dog. You have to choose the dogs that mean you can make the most use of the resources you have available.

[Ian]

For me, those are all aspects of the same problem. If there weren't such large numbers of dogs to deal with, it would be easier to provide an individual assessment of each potential home and each dog - which is why the smaller rescues are able to do that. Because the biggies are dealing with such numbers, rather than trying to get to know thousands of owners well every year, they put in rules to eliminate the people who are statistically most likely to return the dog, and I can't entirely blame them for that.

 

I don't think they are really putting dogs like Brandy to sleep just because of what looked like relatively minor dog aggression : so far as I can see, they are doing it because there are too many dogs. They can't turn them away, so they have to put some to sleep. If you have to put a thousand dogs to sleep, you have to use some criteria to choose which will make it, I guess, and it makes sense to pick the ones that will take months or years to find homes first, if you have to choose any dog.

 

We've had not a few people call Oldies with dogs which came from Battersea, because Battersea have been honest with them and said 'yes, we'll take them back, but if we do, then their chances are not good'. There was one lady who had cancer and was going into hospital and had two not-good-with -other-dogs elderly GSDs that she loved dearly. We couldnt' find anyone to take them, they went to Battersea and from what the owner said to me, were probably put to sleep pretty quickly. I never found out, but her voice on the phone stays with me.

 

I'm sure Brandy would have been a fabulous dog in the right home, but so would all the others in those rows and rows of kennels. I wouldn't want to see Brandy spend the next three years, the next six years maybe, in one of those kennels, and I don't think it's actually that unlikely that he could have done so. I guess they could use their money to build more kennels, hire more workers, expand their capacity and expand it again, so they could keep more of the dogs that are likely to take months or years to find a suitable home - but I'm not sure that it would be a good thing if they did that, really - would it not just encourage more irresponsible owners to breed, knowing that their dogs will be 'safely' cared for in endless ranks of kennels, when they get bored of them?

 

The whole situation is horrible.

 

 

But surely they are choosing those numbers to an extent (I think it said they had 31 Borough contracts)

 

80% of their dogs were poundies in 2008 41.5% of those staffies / x. They can't home them all so surely the truth is they therefore have to "get rid of some" in order to keep meeting those pound contracts. Failing an assessment gives them "a more justifiable" reason to do so. I don't consider Brandy to have shown any particular aggression based upon the clip shown & sorry but if they aren't being set up to fail then whoever was conducting that assessment appeared clueless in the manner they went about the introduction!

[cycas]

But surely they are choosing those numbers to an extent (I think it said they had 31 Borough contracts)

 

 

They are choosing the numbers in the sense that they could give up some of their stray contracts. But how would that help?

 

It wouldn't reduce the numbers of dogs on the streets or being handed in : the councils would have to find another solution, and it seems unlikely that the alternative would be significantly better: it might well be worse. Where would all the dogs no longer going to Battersea go instead?

 

It's driving me nuts the number of people I've seen reacting to this program by saying 'but why aren't they like Dogs Trust, Dogs Trust never put a healthy dog down'.

 

If Dogs Trust had some sort of magic wand system for finding thousands of superb Staffie homes able to deal with dogs that need to be the only dog, one would hope they would have shared it. I can't believe the competition for pound contracts is so fierce that Dogs Trust couldn't have plenty of them if they wanted them.

Edited August 3, 2010 by cycas

[khanu]

 

It's driving me nuts the number of people I've seen reacting to this program by saying 'but why aren't they like Dogs Trust, Dogs Trust never put a healthy dog down'.

 

And having volunteered at a Dogs Trust branch I can tell you that the reason they have the luxury of "never put a healthy dog down" is because they get to pick and choose what dogs they take in in the first place!

 

I'm not knocking the Dogs Trust at all, I think they are a progressive organisation that does a lot of behavioural work with their dogs but the fact is they have the privilege of being able to say to someone who want s hand over their staffie - no. And I heard and saw them do just that on a number of occasions, because they had finite space and already had a number of staffies that they couldn't rehome.

 

By the way, healthy includes mental health - dogs have been put down for being aggressive. Not that I disagree with that either, but some people seem to think that the Dogs Trust take in dogs on the same basis as Battersea do and then never put a dog down - that's just not the case.

[merledogs]

I couldn't watch it either, I don't need to to know what goes on.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2010 by merledogs