BBC2 9.45pm Tonight Seven Pups for Seven People - What happens to 7 Staffie X Pups?

catlou

mariauk wrote: »

Why oh why can we not have any kind of media coverage with the thousands of stafford owners who look after their dogs in exactly the way they should be. There are so many caring, responsible people that have Staffords and they never get a mention in the media. Yet another programe thats puts all Stafford owners in a bad light. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad:

I have to agree with you there.

I watched the programme and thought that as a whole it just massively reinforced the perception most people have of the sort of people that own Staffies and how ignorant they are. Although I did think all the pups seemed adorable, and most of them appeared to be nice natured and better behaved than their owners!! :rolleyes:

Sadly I think if they were to do a follow up - seen as the majority of them appear to have been "dumped" on people many of them will have been moved on again or end up being in rescues...................

I would imagine overall it's a pretty typical scenario for how lots of staffies are bred and the start of the story that goes on to end up with loads of them being PTS or ending up in rescues overflowing with the breed.

Maybe someone like the "Tonight" program need to do a more rounded documentary about the breed and lovely examples like uktigerlily's Chaya which we hear about on here to encourage people to consider them more when rescuing a dog. They also need some sort of campaign too to stop ignorant irresponsible people breeding them and making the problem even worse.

Before someone has a go at me.......I know the whole situation is a lot more complicated than that but little steps in the right direction......................

foreign_correspondent

I agree catlou - I think there are two sides to this - of course, a lot of staffies are owned by lovely, sensible caring owners, and overall they tend to be a nice breed of dog, and more publication of that would improve the reputation of the breed, and help some of the lovely ones in rescues get rehomed.

But the flipside is that they have become an incredibly popular dog in recent years, and can be seen as a status symbol or as being good for 'protection' - although they are certainly not a guarding breed - and sadly are often bred irresponsibly, then purchased by, or are given to, people who are not the best equipped owners for one reason or another. I dont know if it is the same nationally, but here the classifieds are full of ads for staffie pups, and often people have high hopes of selling them to make money, only to find there are more pups than there is demand for.

The bloke who had the last pup (on tag) seemed nice with the dog, but if he gets sent down, the pup will be left without a home. The lad on benefits who gave up the dog had clearly not thought through the realities and costs of owning a dog. Other people seemed to end up with a dog they didn't really want, and were reluctant to get speyed (gran). The sister in law hoped the dog would cheer up her lads who had lost their dad - I think she said later on that it hadn't solved their problems, so perhaps her expectations were unrealistic, if well intentioned.

I would imagine if there was a follow up in a year or two, it is likely that a lot of them will have been passed on to someone else, and some of them will have been bred - and their pups will add to the overpopulation problem we already have. Some of them may well end up in the pound, where the outcomes for staffies are often not good - as they are harder to rehome than ther breeds, and there are so many of them. (Statistically they are the breed most likely to end up unwanted or straying, and the slowest to rehome)

I thought this was an interesting programme, and hopefully educated some who were thinking of breeding their pets.

mrcol1000

catlou wrote: »

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Maybe someone like the "Tonight" program need to do a more rounded program about the breed and lovely examples like uktigerlily's Chaya which we hear about on here to encourage people to consider them when rescuing a dog. They also need some sort of campaign too to stop ignorant irresponsible people breeding them and making the problem even worse.

The problem is no-one would watch it. If the TV listings says "Tonight looks at the lovely little Staff puppies and go awwwwwww" your get a few people watch it but if the TV listings say "Tonight looks at the killer Staff dogs living next door to your house that will kill you and your children" will get a lot more people watching it.

Its the same why every dog that attacks a child is referred to lazily as either "Staffordshire Bull Terrier type dog" or "Pit Bull type dog" by the newspapers and why you get lazy journalists who cover stories of dogs attacking anything and ask the person what the dog was and they go "Well.... it had four legs and a tail" and the journalist goes "So it was a Staff?" which then they print regardless of what dog it was.

Sadly for the media its all a game and eventually Staffs will stop being so trendy and the must have accessory for some parts of society and then hopefully the breed will slowly lose its image.

~Chameleon~

One of my major concerns about the programme, or at least the part I saw (will watch it again on iplayer) is that they featured that very aggressive Mastiff. To the untrained eye, and many people are unfamiliar with dog breeds, it could be mistaken for a Staff, therefore reinforcing the view that they are indeed very nasty, aggressive dogs.

I think this programme is possibly very damaging to the breed and fear we may see even more in rescues as a result

emlou2009

i have to say i only watched it up til it showed the male owner that had it behind a stairgate, but i very much doubt staffie owners are going to rush their dogs into rescue just because they watched a documentary on tv that showed one (or one that wasnt one, whichever it is, as i say i didnt watch it) being aggressive. the dogs are more known (wrongly i know) for being aggressive than the lovely docile family dogs we know they are, so people are already aware that they it is possible that they can have that side to them

KVet

Was that a Mastiff? I had no idea as it had its tail docked which completely threw me.

elsien

Cane corso apparently.

albacookie

If they had cut out all the stuff that was completely unrelated to the dogs then they might have had time to present a more balanced view of staffies and their owners - the fact that the son was playing truant or that one guy was arrested just served to reinforce the sterotypes.

Humphrey10

I saw that programme, I thought it was very odd that anyone would consider buying a staff cross puppy for £300, when you can get one from a rescue centre fully vaccinated + spayed/castrated for £50.