Dogsey

Unfortunate. We don't have these irritating birds here, thank goodness... but if we did, I'd certainly ensure my cats stayed indoors at all times because I've heard how mean and aggressive these things can be. You need to exercise good judgment when you have tiny pets.

I agree totally with BlueJay. My family in Canada have to take care re puppies and small dogs as there are large eagles. This is the owners fault; we are our dogs protectors and guardiand. You cannot blame the gulls, They are predators by nature. When I was first in Ireland a feral cat had kittens at my doorstep and a magpie took one before I could get them inside. Fair game sadly .

Just to add that today a tortoise in Cornwall was killed by a seagull

When we were holidaying in Putsborough we were warned by the locals that my daughter's chihuahua was at risk from being taken by black backed gulls. So we were very careful and kept an eye out ... I don't understand the problem. Every single day tens of thousands of birds are killed by people's pet cats ... very tragic, but part of life - like rats, like seagulls, blow flies, mosquitos ... I just do not understand ... why should it be shocking that toy dogs are at risk of attack by seagull? Poor little Roo, it is horrible that he was attacked, but it is part of life. Just like it is part of life that cats kill birds, dogs kill rabbits, pigeons, squirrels etc if they can catch them.

We have a lot of gulls here in our fields and we are right slap bang in the middle of england, miles from the sea. They do cause a lot of mess in seaside towns with bin raiding etc., but that is our fault, not the gulls - they are only trying to survive as best they can.

I was surprised to hear about this on the radio news. It is tragic that an innocent little dog was killed in this way. But the gulls were nesting on the roof, so what was the owner/carer of the little dog thinking letting him out unprotected? Gulls are known to be problomatic when they have young and someone living near Newquay would know that. The biggest shock is that the owner took that risk. Poor Roo