Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 16 March 2022
I thank my colleague Maurice Golden for bringing to the chamber this important debate on tackling dog theft. Sadly, hardly a week passes without a story appearing in a local or national newspaper about a family pet being snatched from a garden, a park or even a street. The impact on individual families is often devastating, to say the least. That is why I fully support any move to make dog theft a specific offence. I hope that that would reduce theft cases and—crucially—protect all companion animals by bringing those involved in such cruel acts to face tough and quicker justice.
The Scottish Parliament must send out a clear and concise message that dog theft is no longer and was never acceptable and that it will not be tolerated. People who are prepared to go down that road must be severely punished for their cowardly actions.
Dogs are traditionally described as men and women’s best friends. I have had dogs all my life and I know the pain of losing a dog through an accident. A theft would be equally painful. I would have spoken a lot about my current dog, but that would make me really emotional, because the poor old soul is coming to the end of his life. He is still very much part of the family.
Robert Burns, our national bard, had a beloved collie dog that he chose to immortalise in “The Twa Dogs”. He might well also have said that the rights of cats merit some attention. Colin Smyth has catnapped much of my contribution, but I make no apology for highlighting the alarming rate of cat theft. That worrying increase impacts not only on owners but on the cats.
A pet theft awareness report produced by Cats Protection revealed that cat theft crime had, on a like-for-like basis, risen by more than 12 per cent in the past year alone, and that there had been an almost threefold increase—of 194 per cent—between 2015 and 2020. As with many of the dogs that are stolen to order, it is the high-value cat breeds, in particular Bengals, that are most targeted as thieves look to make a financial killing on the black market.