An Angus campaigner calling for tighter controls on the breeding of Staffordshire bull terriers has secured a Holyrood slot to highlight the issue.
With support for his effort gathering pace across the country, Ian Robb from Arbroath has been told he can take the matter before the Scottish Parliament’s petition committee at the beginning of next month.
The opportunity has been welcomed by Mr Robb, vice-chairman of Help for Abandoned Animals in Angus. He said the unscrupulous overbreeding of Staffies and Staffie crosses much of it by drug users for whom the breed has become both a source of funding to feed their habit and a status symbol is at crisis point.
The Angus charity has experienced first hand the explosion in abandoned Staffie numbers and believes even rural communities like Angus are not far away from the situation south of the border, where urban rescue centres are having to turn away dogs or even put them to sleep because new homes cannot be found.
Although eager to take the opportunity to highlight the situation at national level, he believes it may already be too late for the much derided breed.
At the Sea Fest event in Arbroath he gathered signatures for the petition, which has been taken on by welfare agencies throughout Scotland, and said the Staffie is clearly canine enemy number one in the eyes of many.
“I was totally upset by the feeling towards the breed,” said Mr Robb. “People have been very keen to sign our petition all over the country and that’s encouraging that they want something done to control the breed.
“But from the comments that have been made to me there are a lot of folk who would like to see this breed wiped off the face of the earth.
“It is not the fault of the dogs. This breed has been totally stigmatised, but I didn’t think there was this degree of hostility towards it.
“As the weeks are going on it seems to be that things are coming to a head so I am very happy that we have the petitions committee date. Hopefully we help give the politicians an appreciation of the scale of the problem.”