This article includes discussion of animal abuse and domestic abuse, including coercive control, that some readers may find distressing.

Recent scenes of Piper the dog being poisoned by abusive Tom (James Chase) in Emmerdale saw over 1,000 viewers complaining to Ofcom, with fans distressed by the hard-hitting storyline.

Speaking with Digital Spy recently, producer Laura Shaw has now defended the storyline, explaining that everything included within it is “research-led”.

She said: “Well we should have got an ugly dog, that’s the first thing I’m going to say! Having that cute dog, I don’t 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.

“Piper 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 – they’ll use them as weapons against you.”

He continued: “This is all based on research – I promise you that it’s not just us being mean to the dog for the sake of it.”

The abuse of Piper the dog has formed part of a long-running storyline on the show, which has seen Tom terrorising his wife Belle (Eden Taylor-Draper) for months. The ITV soap has been working closely with charities Refuge and New Beginnings Peer Support to accurately portray the subject.

Speaking to RadioTimes.com and other media, Shaw recently confirmed how long Belle’s ordeal will run for.

She said: “We said right from the beginning that we wanted to tell this story as truthfully and authentically as we can. Let’s face it, I think you know people who are subject to domestic abuse, this isn’t something that’s over in a couple of weeks.

“This 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.”