THE legal fight has begun to save a condemned dog that has been dubbed Carlisle's “Houdini hound”.

A district judge in the city has ordered the destruction of Kizzie, a bull-terrier type dog that has repeatedly escaped from its owner's garden into the Raffles housing estate.

That has effectively put his 26-year-old owner Jason O'Neil in breach of strict rules that are meant to ensure dogs classed as dangerous should always be kept on a lead and muzzled in public.

Yet even the police officers who handled the adventure-loving dog have conceded that its nature is “soft and friendly.”

As more than 1,000 people signed an on online petition to save Kizze, Mr O'Neil and his mother Elizabeth Ann Richardson lodge a formal appeal against the destruction order with Carlisle Crown Court.

“We're waiting to find out what happens next,” said Mr O'Neil, from Raffles Avenue, Raffles. He had earlier told District Judge Gerald Chalk how Kizzie had repeatedly scaled the six-feet high garden fence.

Yet the dog had never been involved in a fight, never attacked anybody, and trotted back home when told to by the local postman.

Meanwhile, messages of support for the dog – currently being kept at kennels in Penrith – have poured in from across the world.