Something I saw today that upset me....

[musicposy]

...and I'm not sure that anything could be done anyway.

I was sat in the car in our local-ish town of Chavville tonight waiting for DD1 who goes there for dance lessons. Past the car walked two blokes who I wouldn't like to meet on a dark night, accompanied by the most beautiful looking dog. I'm not great with breed but I reckon some staffy with maybe something a bit leaner. It had lovely patches of brown and black on a mainly white body and did seem to be walking along happily enough. But attached to its collar (it wasn't on the lead) was a chain that seemed to be going to its nose. It looked (it was dark and I was about 20 feet away) as though the chain went actually through its nose.

Why would you do that to a dog? (I'm not even sure I want to know the answer). Is this legal? Could I report it to anyone? Would anyone care? Or is it just one of those horrible things people do to make their dog look hard?

Considered for a rash minute rushing out and taking the dog, but seriously would not have got out alive (apart from the legalities!)

Jesus Christ!

No idea though it sounds like the practice of a dog fighter... but surely, surely even THEY wouldn't be so stupid as to display that in public?

If I were you I'd have a word with your local Dog Warden and also re-post for the attention of Jooly and other vets. Meantime I'll ask a Dog Warden-cum-rescuer if he has any advice or ideas.

I confess I have never seen anything like this, but then the type of people who might do this to a dog probably won't frequent a vet

I know the RSPCA are not well-thought of on these threads, but up here (Scotland) we have the SSPCA and they are pretty good- take things like this very seriously, I have had docked puppies brought to me by them before. It would no doubt need to be investigated further, but causing suffering or harm to any animal without proper anaesthesia/ reason IS an offence and can be investigated as such. It sounds hideous, and if a dog was presented to me like this I would certainly be having an off-record word in an SSPCA inspectors ear.

I will find out the dog warden of the town (about 12 miles from us) and a different county, so I suspect different, and have a word.

One thing worries me, though. If I report it to RSPCA/ dog warden, and they locate the owner/ dog, would the dog end up being taken away and then PTS? Apart from the chain thing it looked in good shape and seemed to be trotting along jauntily enough (though god knows what goes on behind closed doors) and would being taken away to an uncertain fate be worse?

It's the kind of place where I'm never surprised at the behaviour people display, quite frankly.

OK, I've found out who the local council are covering the town, and found the dog warden service. The website implies they deal with nuisance dogs, fouling and strays, but nothing about welfare. Is this usual?

I'll wait for you to come back to me first DBF, with any info, as I don't imagine contacting them now or Monday will make much difference. Will they be able to help when I don't know these people? I guess someone could keep an eye on the area they were in. They were on foot so probably they don't live a million miles away. (I think they were probably off to Asda so my guess is they'd put the dog outside and I could take it home ).

As another thought, there's a police station literally right by where they were and it's always well manned with a very visible police presence at night (it needs to be). Would they care?

One of my rescue contacts, who lives in a city area and sees all too much nastiness says this:

"You see it could well be a halti style put on the wrong way around with the metal ring on top of the nose instead of under the chin, ive known people who have done this by accident when trying to put them on....but ive also heard of dickheads doing a makeshift style, where the make the hole themselves and attach it to a choker...this way they think they can train the dog not to pull as it causes pain when they do. Obviously illegal and totally fucking sick but not as un common as we'd like to think :( "

Whatcha think?

Am waiting for a reply from the DW come rescuer and others. That there was a Police station nearby means that there will be CCTV ... but I wonder how much action they or the RSPCA would take...

Got to be worth a try reporting it if you don't think it was an innocent Halti, hasn't it?

I googled haltis and I don't think it was that because there was only a collar and this chain, no other harness.
I googled a few things to see what it could be including dog nose ring and it seems that sadly this isn't completely unheard of. People think they're making their dogs look cool or hard. To attach it to a choker , well, like you say...

I'll contact the DW and also I'll pop into the police station when I'm back done there and see what they say. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't CCTV of some sort, actually.