In 2007 I was offered to write a short article on Battersea Dogs Home explaining it’s history and how far the organisation had come. For reasons I cannot recall the article never happened but what was interesting was the research.
I spent two days at the Home interviewing and talking to staff about their roles and how they loved the animals so much. After the first day I noticed that a lot of the staff took several animals home as “foster parents”, initially I thought this was purely for the love of the animals but I soon realised that it was simply due to overcrowding.
It was with a great deal of sadness that I saw in several tabloids today reports that around 33% of all dogs in Battersea are put to sleep. Most of these dogs are classed as “High Risk”, these include Staffordshire bulls and Rottweiler’s. In 2009 alone 1,990 of these dogs were put to sleep due to them being unable to be rehomed. It is a popular explosion as these dogs are “status pets”
Battersea are the only home to accept ALL strays and it is struggling to cope with a near ten-fold increase in the number of abandoned Staffordshire bull terriers – prized by gang members because of their powerful muscles and jaws.
RSPCA inspectorate chief officer Tim Wass said: ‘In 2009, we killed 533 healthy dogs. And you’ll notice I used the word kill there rather than put to sleep or humanely euthanise. We want to be able to make sure that the worst cases can find accommodation in our animal centers.
‘On too many occasions they can’t at the moment because we’ve said yes to a member of the public who’s brought the animal in because it doesn’t match the furniture or the curtains.’
Battersea now wants the government to bring in compulsory micro-chipping for dogs to counter owners who see pets as commodities – which are even swapped for gadgets such as MP3 players.
Spokesman Scott Craddock said: ‘In 1996 we took 396 Staffordshire bull terriers. Last year we took 3,600.
‘For us that’s a huge problem because we can’t actually kennel these dogs with other ones in many cases because of their behavior.’
It is a sad tale that is only going to be something of an epidemic at the end.
For those in the UK I urge you to watch Panorama on BBC1 tonight at 8.30pm. It will definitely make you think.
