Dog stabbed after defending home from burglars

Tracy Ireland rushed home last week after a panicked call from her mum to say she had found the family’s black Labrador Squeak slumped on the floor in a pool of blood.

When Mrs Ireland ran upstairs to grab a towel she realised thieves had not only stabbed the family pet twice in the chest but they had also ransacked their Swanwick home and stolen cash, designer watches and a laptop.

Queen’s Medical Centre engineer Nick Ireland came home shortly after his wife yesterday afternoon and said the nightmare scene was horrible.

The 44-year-old said: “I was gutted to think that someone had broken into our own home and to do that to an innocent dog is absolutely despicable. There was blood everywhere, all over the kitchen, all over the walls, the kitchen cupboard doors.

“It just shows what sort of world we live in these days. When the police officer came out she said she’d never heard of a dog being hurt like that. I imagine he was just defending his property and what was rightfully his.”

Mr Ireland has two teenage sons with his 45-year-old wife. He described the scene and said his youngest child, who is 15, had taken the traumatic attack the hardest.

He said: “The redness: we couldn’t clean it up until the scene of the crime officers had been and took some samples. It was awful really. My two sons came home and saw the whole kitchen covered with blood.”

The six-year-old fully trained gun dog, who shares his home with two cocker spaniels and one other black Labrador, is making a recovery after being seen by vets in Alfreton.

Mr Ireland said: “He’s fine but very subdued. There’s two puncture marks in his chest. The vet said if he had not been as muscly as he is it might have had a bigger effect. They stabbed into the muscle tissue and avoided the organs and so on.”

Among the items stolen were some cash, an Apple MacBook laptop, several watches including Omega and Rolex models, and a Pandora bracelet which Mrs Ireland’s children had bought charms for over the years.

A spokeswoman for Derbyshire police confirmed the incident had taken place and said officers were investigating what had happened.

She said: “The break-in appears to have been via an upstairs window and the vet has confirmed that the labrador was stabbed twice in the chest. It is believed to have happened between 12.20pm and 1.30pm on Thursday October 14.”

Anyone with information about the incident in The Meadows, Swanwick should call Derbyshire police on 101 quoting reference number 16000321444.