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A Scottish man has been arrested for teaching his girlfriend's pug dog to do a Nazi salute.

Markus Meechan was arrested in April by the Lanarkshire police for posting a YouTube video titled "M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi", The Telegraph reported.

YOUTUBE Markus Meechan subsequently apologised for posting the video, a supposed "prank", and denied being racist.

In the video, Meechan riles up the pug dog, named Buddha, by repeatedly saying "do you want to gas the Jews?".

On the command "Sieg Heil", Meechan has the dog raise its right paw, as if performing the "Nazi salute".



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YOUTUBE The "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi" video showed Buddha the pug watching a recording of Hitler.

In the video Meechan explained that he trained Buddha to be "the least cute thing I could think of which is a Nazi" in response to his girlfriend "ranting and raving" about how cute the dog was.

Meechan subsequently apologised for posting the video, a supposed "prank", and denied being racist.

"I am so sorry to the Jewish community for any offence I have caused them. This was never my intention and I apologise," he said.

But Meecham was arrested at his home on April 28, and released with an investigation into his actions underway.

"The clip is deeply offensive and no reasonable person can possibly find the content acceptable in today's society," Detective Inspector David Cockburn of the Lanarkshire CID told The Telegraph.

"This arrest should serve as a warning to anyone posting such material online, or in any other capacity, that such views will not be tolerated."

Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities told The Telegraph that: "To regard the meticulously planned and industrialised murder of six million people solely on the grounds of their ethnicity as a joke is outrageous, and for someone who does so to claim not to be racist, beggars belief."

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