It has just been reported on Central News that the 3 people involved in the death of 11 Rottie puppies illegally docked (as reported in the dog press) have today been sentenced to a 3mth jail term each and lifetime bans from owning animals - plus the man who did the docking was fined £1,100.

They showed the dead puppies photographes and explained that the whole litter were taken by the owners to a vet immeediately after their docking - 2 of them died from bloodloss on the journey and the rest had to be PTS after examination by the vet.

It was reported that they had suffered barbaric injuries which had caused tremendous shock and pain to them. They went on to describe the injuries stating that there was damage to the spinal cords, tendons, ligaments, nerves and main arteries.

What brave people to inflict pain like that hope they get there
just desert's in life. Hate reading things about puppies being tortured. My Philosophy in life is what come's round goe's around
and you pay if you do a bad turn to a mortal or animal ..

pAT XX

A terrible and distressing story...but were the actual owners/breeders of the puppy's really trying to be cruel or save money, or was their decision to use 'a man who can' influenced by the fact that they own a traditionally docked breed and perhaps couldn't find a vet that would carry out the procedure for them? Yes I know they could/should have contacted The Council for Docked Breeds for advice but did they? The fact that they paid this man to do this for them suggests to me that they felt that they were not knowledgable enough to to it themselves and I assume that they felt that he was. I did not hear the whole news report so I'm not completely sure of all the in's and out's but perhaps this is another argument for vets agreeing to dock traditionally docked breeds until/unless the law/KC decide once and for all to ban or not to ban. The fact that the owners rushed to the vets after the event at least shows that they tried to do the right thing in the end.:(

According to the News report they knew the Vet's charge would be £140 and the person who performed the docking said he could do it for £70! I think it not unreasonable to conclude from this that they had sought advice from a veterinary surgeon willing to dock the puppies for them at some point prior to the illegal docking.

Seems the man performing the docking had done it before and they didn't have a problem accepting his charges as opposed to the vets. I can't understand why they let ALL the pups undergo an illegal docking if they needed such urgent veterinary attention? Surely the pups would have shown distress and problems very quickly and a caring breeder would not have allowed the remainder of their litter to be docked by this person?

140 pounds (abt $200) for a vet to do minor surgery on 11 pups actually sounds reasonable. I can get up that high in costs with two teeth cleanings for my dogs. I would have been suspicious of the crook's credentials for posing to do the same treatment for half the cost. Of course, I would have cared to have everything arranged correctly in the first place. How horrible & tragic for these puppies. :(
Sara

I dont think the 'crook' was posing as anything. It would appear that all party's concerned were well aware that this was going to be a procedure committed outside of the law. Seems that all party's concerned were prepared to take the risk. Pity they played around with the lives of tiny puppies.