Man who beat dog with golf club so severely it had to be put down handed jail sentence

A man who beat his dog with a golf club so severely that it had to be put down has been jailed.

Terry Thurling attacked his Romanian Shepherd Dog, Griffin, with the makeshift weapon, because he could not cope with its “challenging behaviour”, a court heard.

A neighbour and a nurse at a nearby medical practice contacted the SSPCA and council dog wardens, and Thurling, 43, was charged.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told that on April 24, the neighbour reported seeing through the windows of Thurling’s flat in the St Ninians area that the dog was “running from room to room”.

Thurling appeared to be striking it with something.

The neighbour then heard Griffin “crying for 20 minutes”.

Around the same time, the nurse heard the dog in distress and phoned the SSPCA.

Stirling Council then received a call from Thurling, who said he wanted Griffin put down, alleging the animal had bitten him.

Dog wardens attended, and Thurling admitted he had hit Griffin with a golf club. Wardens saw the golf club in the hallway “bent out of shape”.

Griffin, whose head was covered in blood, was described as “quiet”, and was showing no signs of aggression, according to the dog wardens.

He was taken to Broadleys Veterinary Hospital in Stirling where an X-ray found depressed fractures in his skull, and he had to be euthanised.

The court was told that an examination also found a lesion on his back consistent with a cigarette burn, though this did not figure in the charge against Thurling.

Thurling, an unemployed chef, of St Ninians, pleaded guilty to causing Griffin unnecessary suffering.

He also appeared for sentence on a series of unrelated charges, including resisting police, assaulting a retail worker, and committing a statutory breach of the peace at a hospital.

Solicitor Fraser McCready, defending, said Thurling had owned Griffin for ten months.

Mr McCready said: “It’s quite clear he should never have taken on this dog.

“He wasn’t the original owner and from my instructions it’s quite clear that the dog had challenging behaviour and Mr Thurling wasn’t up to dealing with that behaviour.

“At some stage, having been bitten, he hit the dog with a golf club.”

Mr McCready said Thurling had been furloughed during the coronavirus pandemic and had not returned to work since.

He said he had ongoing undiagnosed mental heath difficulties.

Sheriff Keith O’Mahony said the incident had been “an assault on the dog”.

He banned Thurling from owning or keeping a dog for 15 years, and jailed him for a total of 19 months.