Recent scenes of Piper the dog being poisoned<\/a> by abusive Tom (James Chase) in Emmerdale<\/a> saw over 1,000 viewers complaining to Ofcom, with fans distressed by the hard-hitting storyline.<\/p>\n Speaking with Digital Spy<\/a> recently, producer Laura Shaw has now defended the storyline, explaining that everything included within it is \u201cresearch-led\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWell we should have got an ugly dog, that\u2019s the first thing I\u2019m going to say! Having that cute dog, I don\u2019t think has helped. Whenever you put any sort of pet in danger in Emmerdale, people go up in arms about it, so I did expect it.<\/p>\n \u201cPiper will definitely have a future role in the story. It is research-led. One of the things we found is that pets can be something that abusers will use. They will use the family pet, they will use the people that you love \u2013 they\u2019ll use them as weapons against you.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cThis is all based on research \u2013 I promise you that it\u2019s not just us being mean to the dog for the sake of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n The abuse of Piper the dog has formed part of a long-running storyline on the show, which has seen Tom\u00a0terrorising his wife Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper) for months. The ITV soap has been working closely with charities Refuge<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0New Beginnings Peer Support\u00a0<\/a>to accurately portray the subject.<\/p>\n Speaking to\u00a0RadioTimes.com<\/a> and other media, Shaw recently confirmed how long Belle\u2019s ordeal will run for<\/a>.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWe said right from the beginning that we wanted to tell this story as truthfully and authentically as we can. Let\u2019s face it, I think you know people who are subject to domestic abuse, this isn\u2019t something that\u2019s over in a couple of weeks.<\/p> \u201cThis is something that goes on for a long length of time and we wanted to be truthful to that. So I think you can expect [that] this storyline is going to run until the end of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Emmerdale has been working with Refuge for the Tom and Belle storyline. You can access free and confidential support from Refuge\u2019s 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 and digital support via live chat Monday-Friday 3-10pm via\u202fnationaldahelpline.org.uk<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Emmerdale<\/a>\u00a0airs Monday to Friday at 7:30pm on ITV1. Stream on ITVX.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our\u00a0Soaps<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.\u00a0<\/strong>For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Ofcom received over 1,000 complaints about Emmerdale’s dog abuse storyline. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":53676,"template":"","categories":[1,2,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-boss-defends-controversial-dog-scene-in-belle-and-tom-abuse-storyline-its-research-led-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Ofcom received over 1,000 complaints about Emmerdale's dog abuse storyline.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/53675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Belle](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/06\/emmerdale-belle-tom-abuse-9abaf1d.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"emmerdale-belle-tom-abuse\\"\/")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n
\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"