I was disappointed but not surprised, to read the criticism of the MOD Police decision to euthanise two Police dogs which had been assigned with their handlers to protection duties of the Duke of Cambridge. Blade a nine-year-old Gsd and Brus a seven-year-old Malinois were the dogs in question with the RSPCA
and Dogs Trust leading the criticism. The RSPCA said that the MOD should have ‘explored all possible avenues’ before euthanising the dogs and the Dogs Trust were equally critical, saying that they should not be treated as ‘pieces of disposable kit at the end of their useful military life.’
I’ve come to expect this sort of thing from the RSPCA and who are they to infer that the MOD actually didn’t explore all avenues? The MOD have stated that wherever possible they rehome retired Police dogs at the end of their service, but in the case of these two dogs this was not possible. Blade was suffering
from spondylosis as I understand it and a decision was made not to re-home him and Brus had a temperament issue which made re-homing not an option.
When I was head of the Devon and Cornwall Police dog unit, most of our retired Police dogs were stayed in their handlers homes, but of course we (and that includes these two charities) don’t know what the circumstances were regarding the handlers of these two dogs. It may well be that they already had other dogs at home, including their new Police dogs and couldn’t keep them. I would certainly back the judgement of the head of a Police or Military dog unit against that of the PR departments of these two charities when these difficult decisions had to be made. The older dog was at the end of his working life and had a serious disease. The younger dog was too old to re-handle at that age, especially if he was aggressive. I’m sure charities themselves sometimes have to put dogs down in certain circumstances where re-homing is not a viable option.
I do wonder what the media coverage would have been if these two dogs had been re-homed and someone had been seriously bitten by either of them, particularly the younger of the two, who it was accepted had a serious temperament issue. It’s very easy to criticise when you’ve probably never had any experience of working with such highly trained and driven dogs. Even easier from the comfort of your cosy office
PETER MOUNSEY, ASHCLYST DOG TRAINING AND BEHAVIOUR, EXETER OCT. 2013