Dogs confiscated last year after attacking their owner are costing taxpayers over €3,000 per month to board in a private kennel, activists have claimed. 

The animals in question belonged to André Galea, who in April last year was attacked outside his house by two dogs believed to be pit bulls.

Neighbours awoke to the sound of Galea's screams and cries, while his dogs "bit him to pieces" outside his Msida townhouse on Antonio Sciortino Street.

Eyewitnesses said Galea had stabbed and killed one of the pit bulls after they began to maul him.

Animal Welfare officers sedated the two dogs and took them away. A day after the incident, animal welfare officers collected another eight dogs from the property.

“A year later, these dogs still reside in private kennels, costing the public over 3,000 euros a month,” Animal Rights NGO Vuċi għall-Annimali said on Thursday. 

“These dogs do not get walks, or interaction as they should. They are innocently imprisoned for life.”

Sources confirmed with Times of Malta that at least two of the confiscated dogs are residing in private kennels.

At the time, the Ministry confirmed that the dogs were not to be euthanised and that an autopsy was to be held on the stabbed dog.

In 2020, Galea’s pit bulls mauled his 95-year-old grandmother, Inez Galea to death. 

He stands accused of the involuntary homicide of his grandmother, and during criminal proceedings, it transpired that the pit bulls that mauled Inez Galea had scars that vets believe could be the remains of wounds suffered in dog fights. 

“Is this how much we love these dogs? We leave them in pens until it gets to a point where there is no space on the island for them and then there will be no choice left but to introduce kill shelters,” the NGO asked. 

Vuċi għall-Annimali is one of the Animal rights activists calling for a temporary ban on the breeding and importation of bully dogs.