POLICE have said they are no longer investigating an incident that took place between two dog owners in Popley last month.  

Social media posts began to circulate about the incident shortly after – and now the man who owns two of the dogs has moved to reassure others that his dogs are friendly.  

The man, who does not want to be named, said the incident had caused him stress after it was reported to the police and the dog warden by the other dog owner, who also put posts on to several different social media platforms with his description on it.  

She called for people to help track him down after the Apollo Park encounter last month – and he said that this has also meant he has been the subject of abuse in the street.  

He said: “The social media posts were full of false information, from one side of the story. 

“And because of this we had numerous messages from friends and family informing us these posts were all over the internet and still to this day we receive a huge amount of grief!  

“We get dodgy looks, comments under the breath, people picking up their dogs when seeing us and we even had a threat that the dog would be stabbed if it went near him! 

“Yes, the dogs met at the park but the situation was nowhere near how the “victim” portrayed it.  

“Our dogs were off their leads as they usually are. Greeting and playing with countless other community members and their pets.  

“The woman’s spaniel barked at our dogs, to which ours barked back, (not aggressively), then her dog darted off in the direction of its home across a busy road.”  

As reported on the Gazette’s website, the spaniel injured its paw, however the man said this was most likely to have been caused when it ran off not from his dogs.  

He said: “If a German shepherd type dog was to attack a spaniel, there would have been a larger injury and definitely not on the bottom of its foot.” 

He said they have been in contact with the dog warden, and said that both his dogs were obedient with good recall, and that they had never seen any aggressive tendencies in them. 

He said: “The police and dog warden have since been in touch again, completed a home visit and deemed our dogs not aggressive.”  

He said the other dog owner has since taken down the social media posts, that were in the double digits, however he felt he still needed to speak out to set people’s minds at rest. 

Hampshire Constabulary confirmed to the Gazette that they were no longer investigating and they had filed the case.  

The Gazette published a report of the incident shortly after it happened on our website, based on information provided to us at the time, we apologise to the dog owner and are happy to clarify the situation.