THE GROUP OF neighbours who brought a case that resulted in a social media storm over a dog’s barking say they never wanted the dog put to sleep.

Over 67,000 people have signed Roscommon woman Sharon Gomes Braz’s petition to save her dog Mia. A judge in Strokestown last week ordered her to surrender the dog after complaints by a group of neighbours.

The petition maintains she was ordered to surrender the dog to be put asleep, but the court order says that the collie cross should be “delivered to a dog warden to be dealt with…as if the dog were an unwanted dog”.

Roscommon SPCA has said that if the appeal against the ruling is unsuccessful, they will assist in finding a home for Mia.

In a statement issued to TheJournal.ie, solicitors for the neighbours say that the case goes beyond what has been reported thus far.

Our details gave detailed sworn evidence that the dog was kept in poor conditions in a confined pen and was not cared for.

“Our clients gave further evidence that the dog was not given any attention or even taken for walks. Our clients gave evidence of nothing ever being done about the dog barking.”

The neighbours said that they believed the dog was barking because of the poor conditions and this was a constant source of nuisance for them.

One complainant said that they work shifts and found their sleep disrupted, another has a medical condition with tiredness symptoms and another claimed he had to leave his home at the weekends such was the noise. They all claimed they were “absolutely exhausted”.

Of the two complainants who gave evidence, one said that she was a dog lover and asked that the dog not be put down.

The complainants come from four different addresses within the estate and claim that previous complaints had been met with threats.

The solicitors say that the #Mercy4Mia campaign is “spin which is far from the reality” and that if the appeal is successful the pet will “revert to being an unwanted dog confined in a pen at the bottom of the garden”.

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