Michael Dawson, aged 49, was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay a £100 victim surcharge at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.Police and the RSPCA raided his home in Plymouth and found the American Pocket Bully dog – named Riot – in a crate in the garden with its ears cropped.
Coleman and others attribute the problem to a lockdown boom in dog ownership , a large number of people walking their dogs as part of their daily exercise (rather than letting them go in the garden), and overstretched councils forced to ration dog waste collection to maintain even more fundamental services.