Episode 39 - Kyrgyzstan's dog cull, the laughing police dog, loser Labs and more

The Dog News Show

As usual, Debbie and Julie have trawled through this week's headlines looking for the most interesting dog stories. In this podcast you can hear their choices and opinions. As ever if you wish to comment on anything you hear, or if you want to suggest a story for inclusion in the show, you can get in touch with the show.
The first story this week is Debbie's take on the dog cull occurring in Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, where there is a stray population of 200,000 feral dogs. With no dog rescue plan in place to take in or neuter the dogs, an astounding 12,406 dogs were shot in 2012. Clearly this is a heartbreaking situation, but what's the answer? There are suggestions that paying the "shooters" who kill the dogs on a per dog basis encourages them to shoot dogs who aren't actually homeless.
If Labrador Retrievers are so popular, why has one never been Best in Show at the prestigious Westminster Show? Julie's done some digging and discovered that Crufts has only been won by a Labrador three times, the most recent in 1937. Furthermore at Westminster a Labrador has never ever won Best of Group - so just why is it that Labs are being ignored? Is it that they don't have a long coat, they aren't as elegant as some, or is that they are just not "flashy" enough?
Having worked with many police dogs and handlers, Debbie was drawn to the hilarious story of the police dog who was asked to supply an incident statement. PD Peach's handler duly wrote out an incident report on his dog's behalf and submitted it. It read, ‘I chase him. I bite him. Bad man. He tasty. Good boy. Good boy Peach.’ Though it made people laugh and was shared around various social networking sites, and apparently now West Midlands Police’s Professional Standards Department is investigating - but surely this is a harmless bit of humour from someone in a stressful job?

Sophie the two-year-old Maltipoo was in her garden with the other family dog, seven-month-old puppy Lulu, when a coyote came into the garden. Despite being small, Sophie put herself between Lulu and the coyote and saw the potential predator off. Julie tells how, sadly, Sophie and Lulu's family decided they could not keep the dogs as they were worried about a further coyote attack. When Sophie's story hit the headlines, so many people applied to adopt her that the shelter had to take a novel approach to selecting her new owner.
Next, Debbie reports that a group of rogue M.P.s are complaining that the plans to microchip all UK dogs are "woefully inadequate". Since this is Debbie's view as well, she's hoping that we'll see extra laws to compel owners to keep the details of their dog's microchip up to date, and possibly to see something like a log book system in use with British cars. Plus did you know that although the Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced in 1991the 1871 Dogs Act is still an effective and relevant law regarding dogs?

And so to the part of the show that aims to send you away with a smile on your face - Schmaltz Corner. This week Julie has the tale of Great Dane Ellie Grace who was kept chained up outside but was rescued and rehomed by HART (Helping Animals Reach Tomorrow). But that's not the end of the story, because Ellie Grace's owner had more dogs, so just how did HART help them out too?