A man who filmed his girlfriend’s dog performing “Nazi salutes” and posted the footage on YouTube has been convicted of a hate crime.

Mark Meechan, 30, recorded the pug, Buddha, responding to statements including “gas the Jews” and “Sieg Heil" by raising its paw.

He was arrested following complaints about the video, which was viewed more than three million times after it was uploaded two years ago.

Meechan, of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, denied any wrong doing and claimed he made the video to annoy his 29-year-old girlfriend Suzanne Kelly.

However, Sheriff Derek O'Carroll found him guilty at Airdrie Sheriff Court of a charge under the Communications Act of posting a video that was “anti-Semitic and racist in nature”.