A question put to RDS today by a radio station is whether there can be a campaign to save the dog which is going to be killed on a Channel 4 programme next week. Unfortunately for those animal rights groups, sensing an emotive campaign, the programme was pre-recorded. So the answer is no.

In any case, it doesn’t make sense. Every day more than 20 dogs are killed by local authorities because they have no home. From July 1998 until the end of 2004, the leading animal rights organization PETA has been accused of killing over 12,400 dogs, cats, and other (unwanted) “companion animals” at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. Additionally, every day over 1,500 animals are killed for us to eat as meat in the UK.

Dogs represent less than 1 in 500 animals used in research, but the medical benefits are enormous. Only today in the prestigious journal Nature we have the announcement that scientists have deciphered canine DNA. This will give insights into many human and dog diseases and may lead to new treatments and cures for the future.