Pet ban for man who tied sick dog to post and left it

A MAN who abandoned his cancer-stricken rottweiler has been ordered to behave for six months and banned from keeping pets.

Colin Clark, 35, left the male dog aged around ten tethered to a post because he did not know what to do with it.

Clark, of Wester Close, Edinburgh, admitted causing a dog unnecessary suffering and abandoning it on 19 June last year in the city's Trinity Road. He was sentenced yesterday.

The dog was 25 per cent below a healthy weight, highly dehydrated and had a large cancerous growth on its left front paw. It had to be put down.

Defence agent Brian Gilfedder said: "Never mind looking after the dog properly, he could not look after himself properly."

He said Clark was now being treated for depression and was feeling better.

Sheriff James Scott deferred sentence for six months and ordered Clark not to have charge of any animal in the meantime.

He warned him that if there was any re-offending, "particularly any ill-treatment of animals" he would be dealt with very firmly.