This sad little chap is Spike, an American Bulldog who was rehomed from the Bath Cats and Dogs Home and later dumped again at Weston-super-Mare to be found as a stray and picked up by volunteers a second time. He’s thin, timid and tired.



I’m not overly sentimental about animals, and on the scale of human cruelty, I guess that dumping a dog for whatever reason barely registers, but I’m utterly at a loss as to why someone, having taken an animal from a rescue home – and having been given the education that is insisted on there – would still think it acceptable to pull up in a car, push a dog out, and drive off. They know that the rescue home exists, and while I’m sure you’d feel like a heel returning an animal to a centre after trying to home it, that’s surely preferable to betraying its trust and dumping it to fend for itself. Bah.

He wasn’t the most demonstrative dog – though latterly he warmed especially to Jenny – but he was very gentle and sweet with his big paws and his droopy jowls and his big heid, and he was delighted to see his carer again. I suspect he now sees the Bath Cats and Dogs Home as being his safe and loving place, which, though true, is still sad.