On March 16 2008, Virgin 1, a UK television channel, aired a show entitled Death Row Dogs. :

Brand new documentary special examining the hot political issue of dangerous dogs. After a spate of dog attacks on children in the last two decades, laws have been passed banning the ownership of certain types of dogs in the UK. This programme meets dog lovers nationwide who are facing a battle to save their pets from destruction for crimes they may or may not have been committed.

The documentary was a take on the current dangerous dogs legislation in the United Kingdom.

Here is a selection of reviews and viewer opinions on the show:

From the DogChat website:

I watched this program, and there was some good stuff in it, that was somehow lost in the human emotion bit. Apart from the 14 year stint for the boxer, most dogs were 6-12 months in kennels at £5k per year and the programme it was sad that they didn’t explore why dogs were being kenneled for so long.
——
I’m glad that this show was aired as it brought to peoples attention what we already know that dogs can be taken for what they look like and not how they act.
——
I thought it focused too much on the feelings of the owners. Obviously in an attempt to get the people to see what effect the law has on pet owners.
IMO they should have described the law and how it works a bit better rather than fill the program with emotive narration.
——
If the programme had set out to show ‘deed’ not ‘breed’, I think it failed because, apart from the lady in Ireland, the dogs had committed a ‘deed’. The cases involved, with the exception of the lady in Ireland, seemed a strange choice if the programme was out to promote the ‘deed not breed’ cause.

From the BSL section of the Refuge forum:

I think the programm served very well in highlighting how shambolic the law is, the one dog who was accused of biting someone was left at home waiting for the court case whilst dogs who had either done nothing, been in a fight or were accused of worrying sheep were all banged up, laws an arse.
———–
I’d like to echo all of that sentiment. I thought it was generally a good program, although I don’t think it focussed sufficient attention on the fact that there seemed to be no evidence against the poodles, or the fact that so many dogs have been taken away for absolutely nothing at all.
———
I thought it was a very poor programme. Apart from the wise words spoken by Roger Mugford and the sadness of the featured owners waiting to see if their dogs would be killed or not it didn’t come across well in my opinion. All it seemed to interested in doing was showing the same quick shots of dogs, most of which were bull breeds
———
In my mind it simply added to the confusion and reinforced the misunderstanding in the public mind.
———-

If you saw the programme, what did you think of it?

Submit your reviews using the comment form below.