TMM visit to SSPCA
Join The Muzzle Movement on an exciting trip to meet the Head of Animal Behaviour at the Scottish SPCA!
We were honored to be invited to visit their centres in Scotland, where we discussed canine welfare, training, and the impact of muzzles in rehabilitation.
In November 2023, the wonderful Claire Haynes – Head of Animal Behaviour at Scottish SPCA – reached out and invited us to the visit the centres in Scotland.
Whilst we were so excited to be invited, we were in the middle of trying to get the new size Harry manufactured and shipped to desperate guardians after the announcement of the looming XL Bully ban, so it just wasn’t possible at that time!
We stayed in touch;
we donated some Harry muzzles to the SSPCA when the ban came into place in Scotland and some of our team finally got to meet Claire at the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes conference!
At last, we were able to schedule in the visits to Scotland!
We had been asked to speak at North East Dog Festival in Newcastle, which seemed the perfect opportunity to tie in the SSPCA tour – if we were going North, we may as well go really North!!!
Finally (!),
after 9 months, we set off on the 360 mile journey to the first centre we were visiting – and arrived at the Dumbarton centre! Here, we met the lovely Danni who is the media assistant who joined us at two centres to get some photos of the dogs being fitted for muzzles.
We met some of the fabulous team at Dumbarton & a group of AMAZING DOGS!
Find out about the all the gorgeous dogs below!
Our next visit was to the Glasgow centre.
Here we got to meet the lovely Claire who had arranged for us to visit so it was really great to meet her in person! The incredible staff were so welcoming and had even provided us with drinks, snacks and homemade cakes!
We were given a tour of the centres’ incredible veterinary suite, where we met the lovely vets and did our first fitting of the day!
Next, we got to spend time with the carers and more dogs from the centre.
Find out more about the dogs we met below!
We were so lucky to be able to try on some of our new prototype designs on dogs too!
It is always helpful to try these new designs on different shapes and sizes to make sure we are making the best shape, size and fit possible. We had the best time chatting to the incredible carers at Glasgow, they were so passionate about their dogs and asked lots of questions about good muzzle fit which we were more than happy to help with!
After a busy morning at Glasgow, we were back on the road to our final centre visit to Lanarkshire.
Again, we had the warmest of welcomes, plus more locally-made Scottish snacks which we were very grateful for! We had another list of gorgeous dogs who needed to be fitted for muzzles so we got straight to work.
We are so grateful for the SSPCA inviting us to visit their centres, for organising the dogs who needed fitting so well and for making us feel so welcome!
In total we fitted 34 dogs, and gave 23 dogs their very own muzzle as well as some extra muzzles will help future dogs.
We really hope that all of the fantastic carers felt supported and seen, and that your dogs are special!!! We loved every single dog we met and the entire team was incredible – we are in awe of how hard they work for not only the dogs in their care, but also the cats, reptiles, rabbits, ferrets and small furries!
Find out more about SSPCA here:
https://www.scottishspca.org/