17 Jan 2025
Vet Times
Job TitleA court has heard how a dog had to be euthanised because of injuries sustained when his owner attacked him with a golf club.
Terry Thurling, 43, was jailed for a total of 19 months – and banned from keeping animals for 15 years – when he appeared before the Stirling Sheriff Court this week.
But while it welcomed the sentence, the SSPCA later said he “should never be allowed to own animals again”.
The charity was alerted on 24 April last year after a neighbour saw the dog running in Thurling’s flat in Stirling while he appeared to be striking him.
The neighbour also reported hearing the dog crying for 20 minutes after the incident.
Thurling separately contacted the local council claiming the three-year-old Romanian shephard, named Griffin, had bitten him and should be euthanised.
He subsequently admitted hitting Griffin with a golf club that was seen to be “bent out of shape”, the Stirling Observer reported.
Griffin was euthanised after an x-ray carried out at the Broadleys Veterinary Hospital in Stirling revealed he had suffered depressed fractures to his skull.
Thurling admitted causing Griffin unnecessary suffering and was also sentenced for several unrelated offences, including resisting police, assaulting a retail worker and committing a statutory breach of the peace at a hospital.
Defending solicitor Fraser McCready acknowledged his client “should never have taken on” the dog, which he had owned for 10 months, and was “not up” to dealing with what he described as Griffin’s “challenging behaviour”.
Sheriff Keith O’Mahony described the incident as “an assault on the dog”.
An SSPCA statement, issued after the 16 January hearing, said vets concluded Griffin had been struck over the head at least six times and was euthanised due to the extent of his injuries.
It added: “We are pleased at the sentencing today. Griffin had suffered extensively both physically and mentally at the hands of Thurling and this man should never be allowed to own animals again.”
