Dog for disabled mauled in training

CHARITY workers who train dogs to help South Yorkshire children with disabilities and learning difficulties told of their anguish yesterday after one of their animals was attacked by another dog while in training.

The black Labrador cross, called Grant, was being trained to help a child with autism under a project funded by the BBC’s Children in Need when he was apparently mauled by a bull terrier-type dog in a Sheffield park.

The city-based charity Support Dogs had spent around £12,000 on Grant’s specialist training and workers have since been forced to pay another £300 in vet’s bills, which are set to rise further.

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Grant was shortly due to be matched with a family who have an autistic child to help them deal with the difficulties inherent in the developmental disorder.

Michelle Bellamy, who heads the autism assistance dog programme at Support Dogs, said: “Although Grant is now healing well, we have lost at least a fortnight of his training schedule. But the big question now is whether he has been affected, and in what way.

“Such an attack can lead dogs to become aggressive towards other dogs as a self-defence mechanism. If that happens we will have to withdraw him from the programme because we wouldn’t be able to let him go out to a family.

“That deprives a family desperate for the sort of assistance a dog like Grant can offer. In addition, while no dog training is ever wasted it does mean the cost of getting him so far through the programme might have been better spent elsewhere.”

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When the attack took place, Grant was on a lead with a foster carer who looks after the charity’s dogs while they are in training. The dog that attacked Grant was also on a lead but still managed to inflict severe injuries.

The charity said it was unlikely that it would take legal action against the owner of the dog which carried out the attack on Wadsley Common in the Hillsborough area of Sheffield.