Dog Cruelty on the Increase

Dog unidentifiable after being starved
Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside
Deputy Chief Inspector Leanne Hardy
Case number 07-0117
A dog was so thin when he was taken to the RSPCA centre in Wallasley, Merseyside, that staff and volunteers couldn’t identify what breed he was. The male boxer bull-mastiff-cross had been starved to half his natural body weight.
Andrew Ward (d.o.b 26.02.83) of Alwen Street, Birkenhead, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering by failing to provide adequate diet and failing to exercise reasonable supervision of the dog, called ‘Buster’. He was banned from keeping all animals for five years, given a supervision order for two years to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £300 at Wirral Magistrates Court in March 2007
RSPCA deputy chief inspector Leanne Hardy said: “Buster was in a pitiful state when he came to our attention. He was very thin, hadn’t been exercised and had no social skills. He was really timid and frightened of everything.”
Animal centre manager Joanne Hughes said: “It was touch and go whether Buster would make it at all when he first arrived. He had to be fed a couple of spoonsful of food every few hours and it took months for him to recover physically.
“Mentally, he needed a lot of TLC, but when he left us he was a beautiful, bouncy dog with a lovely personality.”