Owner of XL Bully dogs that savaged blind spaniel jailed and handed ten-year pet ban

The owner of a pair of XL Bully dogs which savaged a blind spaniel so badly the six-year-old cocker had to be put down has been jailed.

Aidan Lewis’s American Bully dogs were unmuzzled and unleashed on a public walkway when the incident occurred in the Braemar Park area of Dunblane in March.

Lewis, 20, had been issued with a dog control notice only four months before, after an earlier incident in which his “strong” animals escaped from his garden and seriously injured another dog.

The blind spaniel, Maggie, was being walked on the lead by her owner on the path at 12.20pm on Monday March 11 when the incident occurred.

Prosecutor Tiffany Chisholm said the woman saw Lewis’s XL Bullys, Nova and Coco, “running towards her” while Lewis shouted at them to come back.

The woman, realising Maggie was about to be attacked, tried to pick her up but before she could, Novo and Coco set upon Maggie, biting on the neck and stomach.

Ms Chisholm said the woman began “screaming” for help.

Lewis and the woman both tried to pull the dogs off but “due to the dogs’ strength they were unable to”.

A passer-by who heard the woman’s screams rushed to the scene.

He put Maggie in his car and together with the owner, took her to a vets’ where she was found to have multiple puncture wounds to her neck and muscle and an abdominal hernia.

An X-ray revealed further internal injuries and Maggie’s owner decided it would be best to have her euthanised.

The police were contacted and Lewis was cautioned and made no reply.

Lewis, a first offender, pleaded guilty to allowing his dogs to be dangerously out of control, and breaching the Dog Control Notice served on him by Stirling Council.

Solicitor Frazer McCready, defending, said Lewis was “horrified and appalled” at what his dogs had done, and he’d had them put down.

He said: “He describes it as ‘the worst thing he’s ever seen’ and he did what he could to stop the attack.

“He accepts [the woman] was distraught and will continue to be distraught.”

He said Lewis had no other dogs, and it wasn’t his intention to own more dogs.

He said: “He has had sleepless nights as a result of this incident.

“He clearly acted in a reckless manner by having the dogs off the lead and not muzzled.”

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told Lewis his decision to walk his dogs off the lead and that fact that he had disregarded a Dog Control Notice were serious offences.

He said: “Despite that Notice you continued to walk your dogs unleashed, with the horrific incident unfolding and the tragic aftermath resulting in the spaniel being euthanised.

“Anyone who flouts or deliberately disregards the law surrounding dangerous dogs must be aware they are at grave risk of losing their liberty.

“There is serious public concern surrounding these dogs, and the law will be enforced.”

He said he “one shuddered to think” what might have happened had the woman held onto her dog.

“There is no room when dealing with dangerous dogs such as yours for the view that the law does not apply to you, or that you think you know better, or that you think that your dogs will not attack,” he said.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson sentenced Lewis to four months youth custody, and banned him from owning dogs for ten years.