sumosmum

Great news, well done to all the helpers with all the hard work. So happy for all concerned.

It would probably be a good idea to put a notice up on this site. It comes up in google searches all the time. If anyone found the dogs, they might look up here for a lost notice. lostdogs.com.au I think it is one of the biggest sites.

I have let Jetpets know about this, in case they were not aware of the situation.

Don't be surprised if the next article says that pitbulls are causing global warming. That quite possibly could be the next headline the way things are going at the moment.

Seems like AQIS and Customs, federal law enforcement officers, are not as smart as Council workers. Councils can spot them and have a standard now, but the professionals can't! Yeah, right. This is a load of crap. I have never seen any reports on dog attacks, where it has been said that the owner of the attacking dog was a bikie! And I am sure if that was the case, we would have heard about it. It would make great headlines, with all the other rubbish that some papers publish. Where do they drag these people from that write this stuff?

Link to the facebook page. Find CJ and Chevy! If you would like any help searching or delivering flyers or anything, please let me know. I am in Essendon, so not too far.

Just for the record, the bogus report didn't come from a friend of anyone here that I know of, it was posted on a group page. Edited to add, But, I believe the poster is a dol member!

The DOLer posted it on a Facebook page Thanks, i was concerned that someone may get flamed for passing on a lead that didnt work out. Not saying any one would deliberatly do that. No the person who told us, we very much appreciate that we were told. I mean what if it was true? Just cant believe someone would make up a story like that We just need to focus on finding the girls and getting them home safely BEFORE one of them whelps Glad that it wasn't true, but just want the dogs to be home safe and sound. Everythng crossed here for them. If you need any search help, please let us know. We are on that side of town.

Thank you, I got Flaves and Sam.

If anyone has Flaves phone number, can you please PM me. Thank you.

Flaves, sent you a PM, please have a look. Thanks matey.

I had this suggestion made to me from a person who saw me share this on Facebook. Is anyone good at making a page for Facebook? - I shared this and got suggestion from Jenny Dewitte - please make up a page and link it to the lost dogs army. we can then post it around. please make sure there is lots of info and most importantly good pics of the dogs. also contact local pounds, vets, etc. and put up flyers around where the dogs went missing

Shared on Facebook and some groups. Hope they get home safe and sound very quickly.

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This is a problems for owners of all dogs now. With this standard, so many other dogs have been put in danger. And there is also the chance that this standard can be changed at some time to put even more types of dogs at risk. There are things we can do to try and get the Government and the population to listen. Local papers, writing to MPs and also writing to the opposition, to get some sort of discussion going on this is a start. Don't just let it slide through without a whimper. It is the fault of irresponsible dog owners that this has happened. Dog owners of all dogs, that have done the wrong thing, have brought this down on us.

I agree. And they will buy a dog that doesn't fit the Standard,deliberately, so people with dogs that are totally safe from this madness need to worry for the future. They need to worry a lot I think.

Cosmolo, have you been able to find out any information regarding the standard and crossbreed dogs. Does the dog need to fit every point on the standard to be deemed as restricted? Or is there a certain percentage that the dog has to fit before it is accused of being restricted? I don't know if I have been looking in the wrong place, but I can't find anything. I also wonder about the Vet Cert part of the legislation. Is a vet able to state that a dog is a breed other than Amstaff. It is written so poorly, and vaguely, this doesn't seem clear to me. Can the vet certify that he honesty believes a dog to be a cross of certain breeds? If they are saying a council worker is able to make this decision, surely a vet is able to as well! Has anyone found any information about this. I have emailed asking the Minister and another MP, but still no reply......a week later, and time is ticking by.... So many of us with adopted dogs and cross breeds need the answers to these questions?

We have a Charter of Human Rights in Victoria. "Tuesday, 25 July 2006 (Melbourne): The Victorian Parliament passed the Victorian Charter of Rights and Responsiblities. The Charter will take legal effect from 1 January 2007. Victoria is the first Australian State to enact a Bill of Rights." Don't think it will help much tough. Victorian Charter of Human Rights And here is the link to the Human rights protected by the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Human rights Protected by the Charter of HR and R

Dog fight brews over new laws WHEN four-year-old Ayen Chol was mauled to death at her northern Melbourne home last month, a torrent of outrage and calls for action filled the public arena. The attack was shocking and unprovoked. Ayen, born in Australia to a family of Sudanese refugees, had been playing in the front room of a St Albans house, where her family was staying with relatives, when a pit bull cross burst in from across the street. The dog ran into the front yard and rushed at two women standing outside, before chasing them into the house and latching on to Ayen as she sat with other children. Ayen died while her mother screamed for help. Her five-year-old cousin, Nyadeng, received serious head injuries that required surgery and Nyadeng's mother was bitten on her hands and arm as she tried to save the girls. The next day, shock spilled into anger as a flood of reaction swamped websites and talkback radio, calling for retribution against "killing machine" pit bull terriers. "Kill the lot of 'em," screamed readers on the Herald Sun website. "Owning a pit bull is no different to owning a gun." Politicians promised tougher laws to control the "sharks on legs" as federal MP Bill Shorten dubbed pit bull terriers. While dogs are regulated on a state by state basis, with enforcement largely carried out by local councils, the St Albans attack sparked calls for tough national legislation to combat what is perceived to be an escalating problem. Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland agrees there need to be strong and consistent laws across Australia on restricted and dangerous dogs. While he stops short of proposing national laws, he supports standardising the dangerous dog laws that do exist and is writing to the states and territories to this end. Not surprisingly, the strongest sentiment on the subject has come from Victoria's Baillieu government, which is now poised to bring in new legislation on dangerous dogs, including changes to the Crimes Act that will leave owners whose dogs injure or kill people facing up to 15 years in jail. The changes to the Crimes Act are expected to be tabled in the Victorian parliament next week. As well, previous moves targeting American pit bull terriers have been escalated, with owners now given until the end of this month to make sure their pit bulls are registered as a restricted breed or they can be seized and destroyed. In the wake of Ayen's death, NSW and South Australia, which already have comprehensive dangerous dog laws, are considering tightening their restrictions even further, as well as reiterating the message to councils about their responsibilities to enforce the legislation. But while many in the community support the the aim of the laws -- to breed pit bulls out of existence within a decade -- there is disquiet growing among veterinarians and others who ask: how do you identify these killer dogs? Is it even possible? And will new laws genuinely reduce the risk of children being savagely mauled? Five breeds of dog are automatically deemed restricted in Australia and are prohibited from import under the Customs Act. They include the pit bull (and American pit bull), the Argentine dogo (or mastiff), the fila brasileiro (Brazilian fighting dog), the Japanese tosa and the perro de presa canario (another mastiff). The restriction does not apply to crossbreeds. In most jurisdictions, the restrictions that apply to these breeds are extended to include any dog that is deemed dangerous, irrespective of breed. But according to the Australian Veterinary Association, which recently began a campaign under the slogan "ban the deed, not the breed", a breed-specific approach to legislation is not the answer. Victorian president Susan Maastricht says humans, not dogs, are the species that need to be targeted, through education to improve their pets' behaviour. "The animals are being made the scapegoats, but it's mostly about what humans do with them," Maastricht says. "Politicians are looking for . . . a visible solution. It's not actually going to fix the problem because there will always be dog bites." Maastricht is concerned vets will come under pressure to certify dogs as non-pit bulls as the new Victorian legislation comes in. In the absence of DNA testing for pit bulls, the proposed laws provide visual guidelines to help vets and authorities identify the breed. Vets say the process will be complicated by the large range of pit bull crossbreeds in Australia, including the similar looking staffordshire terrier crosses. Maastricht says it is not that easy to pick a dog breed by looking at it. "The terrible part is that there are an awful lot of lovely looking dogs that are crossbred dogs that have never been and are never likely to be a problem, and they'll get swept up in this," she says. The unregistered dog that killed Ayen Chol has been described as a pit bull cross, and was put down by council officers the day after the attack. It had lived at a neatly kept suburban house across the street from the St Albans home before getting loose at about 8pm on August 17. Police have interviewed the 30-year-old owner of the dog but have not yet decided what charges will be laid. Statistics from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention show that of 238 fatalities linked to dog attack in the US between 1979 and 1998, 66 were blamed on pit bulls and another 10 on pit bull crosses. Rottweilers were the next biggest group, with 39 deaths attributable to purebreds and five to rottweiler crosses. In Australia, official figures are patchy. There is no national body keeping track of attacks and breeds. While hospitals as well as councils keep some records, many dog bites are dealt with at GP level and remain unrecorded. One of the few sources of national data is Monash University statistician Linda Watson, who has been collating figures from the states and territories for a PhD thesis on the effectiveness of regulation in preventing dog attacks. Watson has counted at least 33 dog attack deaths in Australia since 1979, but apart from the dog that killed Ayen Chol, only one other culprit been described as a pit bull cross. "There is no research yet published showing that breed-specific laws have worked," she says. "Particularly for ordinary crossbred domestic pets, the task of breed identification to any level of certainty or reliability by a dog's physical characteristics is simply and absolutely impossible from any scientific, technical or professional perspective." Watson says similar legislative moves in Britain and across Europe in the early 1990s have since been scaled back. "The laws cannot work if you cannot enforce them," she says. RSPCA policy also argues dogs should not be declared dangerous solely on the basis of breed, though its position has not always been so clear. In 2009, an American pit bull attacked a Melbourne man who was walking his two small dogs. It killed one of his dogs and latched on to the man's hand, maintaining a powerful grip until ambulance officers arrived and injected the dog with lethal drugs. At the time, RSPCA Victorian president Hugh Wirth said he believed pit bulls were "time bombs waiting for the right circumstances". "The American pit bull terrier is lethal because it was a breed that was developed purely for dog fighting, in other words, killing the opposition," he said. "They should never have been allowed into the country. They are an absolute menace." The RSPCA declined The Australian's request to interview Wirth yesterday, with a spokesman saying the organisation wished to present a consistent viewpoint. RSPCA Victorian chief executive Maria Mercurio says the policy has changed since 2009 as there is a lack of research showing pit bulls or any other breed is more prone to attack. "The statistics just aren't there," she says. "Most breeds of dogs can be aggressive and be violent if they are trained and kept that way. We have matured, and our opinion and our policy has evolved." In Canberra, however, RSPCA scientific officer Jade Norris says there is "some evidence that certain dog breeds have a greater genetic predisposition towards aggressive behaviour. "They might also have a lower trigger point for aggression and due to their physical size and strength they may have a greater capacity to inflict serious injury compared to other breeds." Meanwhile, National Dog Trainers Federation operations manager Brad Griggs describes the legislative push as "the equivalent of racism". "Tacking on more powers for search, seizure and euthanasia doesn't answer the problem," he says. Griggs is promoting a radical policy recalculation that would see all dog owners required to take a certified course in responsible pet ownership, regardless of their breed. He also suggests requiring certain types of dog, such as pit bull terriers, to pass obedience and temperament tests every year. INFANTS and young children remain most vulnerable to dog attack, with two children killed in NSW in the past five years, one in Western Australia, and another little girl in Victoria. Two-week-old Kate Morey didn't stand a chance when her family's pet Siberian husky attacked her in her cot in Perth in 2007. A nine-week-old girl from Pakenham on Melbourne's southeastern fringe also died after being dragged from her cot by the family rottweiler in the same year. In NSW, three-year-old Ruby-Lea Burke died after being savaged by four bull mastiff crosses in the home of her babysitter at Whitton in 2009. And in 2006, four-year-old Tyra Kuehne wandered into a neighbour's backyard and was killed by up to six dogs in Warren, 540km northwest of Sydney. The dogs were various crossbreeds of boxer, greyhound, pit bull and mastiff, and had been trained for pig-hunting. NSW District Court judge Michael Elkaim this year ruled the local council had been negligent in failing to seize the dogs despite numerous complaints from nearby residents. He awarded Tyra's father and brother more than $120,000 in damages, saying the dangerous situation had existed for some time, "perhaps even years". "Ultimately I am satisfied that but for the council's failure to act, as and when it should have, the attack on Tyra would not have occurred," Judge Elkaim said. Victorian Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh is making no apologies for the Baillieu government's swift and tough approach, saying the "deed, not the breed" mantra fails to appreciate the potentially deadly consequences of weaker action. "Once the deed is committed it means someone has been seriously injured or, in the worst case scenario, someone has been killed," he says. "Then it's all too late. You cannot then undo what's been done. "If that type of dog has been involved in fatalities like we saw two weeks ago, we would be irresponsible not to do something about it." Walsh says hospital admissions of children injured by dogs show a prevalence of "pit bull type" dogs, and while education for dog owners is good, it is unlikely to reach those who really need it. "In effect laws are made for those that aren't responsible and that's what we're trying to deal with in this particular case," he says. "The people who don't register their dogs appropriately and don't handle their dogs appropriately are the same people that will not do the training courses."

Good for you Cosmolo. I just read this and missed the news. Do you have a link, I would love to see?

And another worry with all of these bully breed dogs being handed in by these owners who are obviously not great owners anyway. Will these same people now go out and get a different breed, other than a bull breed? Which breed will they get next? Probably one that doesn't fit the standard. So, what is next?

so agree.

Did you appeal through VCAT? That is the procedure, and the council should have advised you of that. She won't be registered with council as a Boxer x Staffy any more if she has been declared a Restricted Breed. She would be registered as Pitbull x. Did council give you an info sheet on all the regulations in regards to keeping a Restricted Breed?

But was she declared a Restricted Breed or a Dangerous Dog? If she is registered as a Restricted Breed, as long as she is housed in the prescribed manner, they are not able to destroy the dog. If she is declared a Dangerous Dog, the same thing should apply. Being declared either of these, she gets no second chance, so you can't put a foot wrong. And if she is declared either of these, make sure that when she is in the enclosure that you have it locked well so she can't be let out.

At least owners will have half a chance, im in the city of Casey myself, in Lyndhurst. My dogs should be fine since they are both pure bred and papered, English and American(the bureaucracy of it)staffords respectively. Seriously, the new legislation would be fine if it werent for targeting dogs based on a look as oposed to the deeds at hand. I think all responsible owners, of ANY breed think that putting the onus onto owners is more than sufficient, the rest leaves too much room for pre concieved predudices on particular breeds, either through misinformed justification (they have LOCK JAWS!), fear mongering (tragic cases from the news making us point the finger at specific breeds) or somtimes the more sinister unjustified hatred of a breed/s. I personally, instead of hiding my dogs from the public like a criminal have taken to showing them outside more often and giving people a better chance to see their temperment as stable, fun dogs. Just yesterday I took my family up to Sky High, Dandenong Mountain and we stopped for lunch in Olinda. Some people were doing double takes and wide berths. More attention was given their way when a little white yapper (and i wont pidgeon all small dogs as trouble makers, its just their owners can somewhat aford to be less in control of them as they pose a much smaller threat than what a larger dog might) had a go at my boys who barely looked at it when it walked past. This little dog was lunging for them and barking quite aggressively but people seemed quite amazed that my 'crazed killer' dogs were more interested in being well behaved, and no few people did mention their good behaviour thereafter. By showing more people that they can be as good as any other dog i think we can help people see that it is about owner responsibility almost all of the time, and when people ask, i tell them that these sort of animals can be likened to trucks or motorbikes. When responsible people are behind them theres rarely any trouble, but when irresponsible people are, it can be disasterous. I agree, getting our lovely dogs out and showing people for themselves that with good owners, all dogs can be well behaved and a pleasure to have around. The Standard and the crossbreed bit is the scary bit here. A lot will depend if the Rangers in the area are reasonable and honest people who are educated well themselves. Some are not. And the areas that come under the Lost Dogs Home, the councils who use them for pound services some of them will be a worry I think. Not all, but some. Still have no idea how many parts of the Standard a dog has to have present before it is called a Restricted Breed. Maybe they have to tick all the boxes there, I don't know. Does anyone have any idea at all?