Four people have been arrested and four pitbull-type dogs seized following a series of co-ordinated raids across Teesside and Birmingham. Several addresses were raided by the RSPCA and police officers from Cleveland and West Midlands investigating organised dog fighting.
Two arrests were made at Bordesley Green in Birmingham, with one each in Stockton and Middlesbrough. The dogs - some scarred - are in RSPCA care awaiting veterinary checks.

‘Sickening behaviour’

As well as the arrests, officers discovered treadmills and dog fighting training records.

A Cleveland Police spokesman said: “The intended effect of this operation is to send a clear message to individuals that this sickening behaviour will not be tolerated.”

Ch Insp Mike Butcher of the RSPCA special operations unit, added: “People may think that dog-fighting has gone away, but that’s simply not true.

“There are still people who seem to gain pleasure from seeing two dogs ripping each other to pieces, so whilst those people continue to pursue their vile hobby, the RSPCA will continue to pursue them.”

When it comes to finding a pet sitter or dog walker it can be a bit of a mind-field.  Basic things to check for in a pet sitter are if they have public liability insurance and if they’re police record checked - both important if you’re going to be letting someone into your home whilst you’re away.  It’s also worthwhile checking if they hold and professional / trade qualifications and are members of any recognised pet service industry associations such as ‘Pet Sitters International’. Other things to check include business registration details and references from other clients if possible. If you’re looking for a pet sitting or dog walking company that fulfills all these requirements (and you’re in the Melbourne area, then give Melbourne Pet Minders a call. 

The Birmingham Dog Show Society, will be staging ‘The National Dog Show’ from the 08th to the 11th of May at the Staffordshire County Showground, Weston Road, Stafford. Show schedule details can be obtained from the show website.

The Cocker Spaniel Club will be holding it’s championship show on Sunday 13th July 2008 at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire. Judges are:
Dogs: Mrs A Webster (Asquanne)
Bitches: Mrs M Coar (Cormara)

Show schedule and entry forms can be downloaded from the club website.

Just a quick post letting you know what to expect over the next couple of weeks.

We intend to add a page for Spaniel clubs to list their details, so just drop us an email with your club details if you’d like to be listed.

We’ll be adding an amazon powered spaniel book store.

We’ll be adding an events calendar to this blog which will details spaniel dog shows that are coming up, so again, if you’d like to add your show details, just drop us an email and we’ll place the details online.

Whenever a new website is launched, is always a balancing act regarding promoting the website to visitors and potential advertisers.

Letting advertises advertise too early, when the visitor numbers aren’t there leads to disappointment for the advertiser.

Conversely, attracting lots of visitors to the website, when there are no advertisers, leads to disappointment for the visitor.

This week, we started to inform breeders about the website and we hope we’ve found the right balance.

The website is progressing well in the search engines now and ranks highly for many spaniel search key phrases.

Visitor numbers for last month was 3328, despite not having publicised the site to breeders yet.

Having hopefully found the right starting point, we are now going to increase promotion of the website, attracting more visitor numbers and more advertisers as we progress.

We’d like to welcome you all top our new website, we hope you enjoy your visit.  The site is still in it’s early days at the moment and we’ve still to add various features such as spaniel club details, show dates and an amazon powered spaniel book shop. We’re also busy promoting the site at the moment as we continue to gro visitoir numbers and move further up the search engines.

For advertisers, we’ve got some special launch offer prices at the moment, further details can be found here