Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Man Who Taught Dog To Do Nazi Salute Crowdfunds Over $185,000 For Court Appeal

(JTA) — The Scottish man who was found guilty of a hate crime and fined $1,100 for teaching his girlfriend’s dog to do the Nazi salute has raised tens of thousands of dollars for his appeal.

Mark Meechan, 30, who was convicted last month, taught the pug, named Buddha, to respond with the Nazi salute when prompted by statements such as “Heil Hitler” and “gas the Jews.” Meechan posted videos of the dog performing the trick on YouTube.

Meecham said at his sentencing on Monday that he would appeal his conviction, saying it sets a dangerous legal precedent against freedom of expression.

As of Thursday, he already had raised over $185,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the costs of his appeal, over $40,000 more than his original goal.

On the page he says: “This conviction will be used as an example to convict other people over the things they say and the jokes they make, it sets a standard where courts will be able to willfully ignore the context and intent of a persons words and actions in order to punish them and brand them as criminals.”

The original video, posted in April 2016 on his YouTube channel, Count Dankula, was viewed more than 3 million times before it was removed for violating YouTube’s policy on hate speech. Meechan said on the video that he trained the dog to annoy his girlfriend. He later posted a video in which he apologized for the original dog clips, saying it was a joke and that he has no such political leanings.

In the sentencing Monday, Sheriff Derek O’Carroll rejected Meechan’s explanation that the video was made as a private joke and pointed out that he had “not taken any steps to prevent the video being shared publicly.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.