sumosmum

Yep. There were all sorts of things going on to the lead up to the press reporting that Lennox was dead. One person even flew in from USA, on a private jet that was donated and had a meeting with the Council. They had her in the office, spoke with her, let her plead her case to have him flown tO USA, and said they would do what they could, and then, before she had even left the building, they announced he was dead. As has been said, none of this made any sense. To do that to the woman from USA was just weird. The Councillor made out that there was hope, and said he would consider it. Lennox was already dead when he said that! I told them what I thought, and they read a press statement to me. I then mentioned how disgusting I thought the whole 2 years had been. Then the woman on the phone said "what, you think I am disgusting". I clarified and said no, that I was referring to the whole thing. But I really found it odd that she found it so dreadful, even if I had said she was disgusting. I am sure she would have heard a lot worse from other people than what I told them. I was actually very polite, but clear in what I said, I thought. I left the conversation with the opinion that they were all a bunch of wierdos. :laugh: The reason I rang is because I had been in touch with the owner of Lennox when this first kicked off 2 years ago, and had followed and supported them ever since. I think the whole thing was very unfair. A lot of people were making a last ditch effort to save him......if he was still alive. It felt better than doing nothing. Interestingly, the dogs registration was sent out to them each year while he was impounded and the owner kept paying it. The council kept accepting their money, even after they had won in labeling him a pitbull. And even up until now, they still had a dog that was registered as a bulldog by the Belfast City Council. The same registration this council had been accepting for the 7 years that the dog was in his home, and the 2 years he was in the pound. It wasn't like a normal pound pen, it was a concrete room, with damp looking sawdust on the floor. No view out judging by the leaked photos of him while impounded. I hope whoever leaked the photos will eventually open their mouth and state what the true story is. If he was alive until yesterday or not. Then again, that person may have been sacked by now too, and may not know.

Agree. Totally. And just for the record, myself and my dog were attacked, injured and traumatised by a purebred Lab. Yes, and to top it off, it was a Customs Dog, so there goes that theory out the door. All documented by the Council and the police. I own a SBT and he was so scared, he wet himself. The carer ran away, leaving the dog attacking us. That poor woman and poor little dog. What a moron the guy who owned the dog was. The worry is that he will get another dog. I don't know where the dogs nsw guy got the idea that in Victoria they are looking at individual dogs and not breeds. It is the total opposite. We have the worse laws imaginable and many innocent dogs have been destroyed just this year.

Agree Dxenion. I have no idea why they won't hand the collar back. It doesn't make sense if we are to believe the story that the council have told, and that he was killed yesterday. Bruce (another dog) was relocated from NI about 2 years ago, so it has happened before. He had a large following also. It was a different council, but he was relocated to Ireland and is living there happily. He hasn't eaten anyone either. Who knows what has gone on with Lennox but the behaviour of the council and their attitude, makes you wonder about their integrity. The owners were not allowed to see Lennox for the whole 2 years. I don't understand how this can be acceptable.

I also think he died a while ago. That council is just so wrong on so many levels. Their behaviour has been a disgrace. I rang them yesterday afternoon. The woman was a nutter. Others called, and were greeted with animal noises, and laughter when voicing their concerns. Just revolting behaviour. The council is also refusing to give Lennox's collar back to the owners as well. There was a supposed bomb threat made to the council after they had killed Lennox. I wouldn't even be surprised if the council made that up too, to make the supporters of Lennox look bad. Will never know, just woudn't put it past them from the things they have done through the past 2 years. There is a video of the dog being assessed last year. In court the assessor said that he was the most unpredictable dog he had ever seen! Link to video of assessor There have been several photos of the dog warden who said she was petrified of the dog, with the dog on a leash and not wearing a muzzle. She didn't look to scared. She is the one sitting down in the video. I hope he is resting in peace. Other photos that have been leaked are of him with a dreadful skin condition and holding a front leg up, looks like he is limping. Very sad, the whole thing. I feel sorry for his family, they fought long and hard for him. And they are not even allowed to have his collar.

Have to comment here though....you seriously think a Lab or GSD couldn't attack and kill a child? Attitudes like yours are the reason other breeds DO attack children, we don't need to worry 'cause it's a Lab, it wouldn't hurt a fly right? You shouldn't have to worry about a dog from across the road charging into your front yard,then into your house killing a toddler inside, do you know of any Labs or GSD's who have done that and does anyone own any dogs of those breeds they would suspect could do the same if they got out?. Should be very interesting when pictures of the dog involved in the Ayen Chol tragedy finally surface. So far extremely closely guarded. Multiple Freedom of Information requests (Police, Council, Department of Primary Industries) denied. TV Media prevented from filming dog on seizure. Word is from multiple and very reliable sources that so called pit bull may not have been, heaven forbid, a pit bull! Hmm, yes, that invisible pitbull! I was thinking the same thing. I am really glad about the inquiry, and hope that a lot of information comes out of it. Nobody here was, as far as I know, present when the sad event happened, so I don't know where they get their information. They seem to think they know exactly what happened, what the dog did, what it looked like and how it came to be outside the yard. Amazing that they have this special gift of knowing all the facts without being there and prior to the inquiry.

I am just wondering if anyone here in the general area of Portland, Victoria, could recommend where I could purchase a dog enclosure for a Restricted Breed dog. I am purchasing this for a person, not for myself, but thought there may be someone here who is local to that area, who may be able to point me in the right direction. My only other option is to arrange the purchase from Melbourne, and have it delivered. Any recommendations in Melbourne might also be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Oh no. That is just shocking! RIP little Sarge. I hope the owners will be dealt with.

Totally agree. Well said.

I think she is the DDA watch lady in England. I saw this a few Christmas's ago on their page.

All they should have got was a fine for unregistered dogs. A lot of the points on the standard they didn't comply with. And also some of them they say they complied with months after they were impounded, they didn't comply with when their were seized. Some measurements were out by 19% and 13% and tails were wrong in length, and sticking out. That is noted by the council "sticking out". Even their eyes, they say did not comply when seized but did a few months later. Ears, well lets not even mention the ears. And all of these things that did not comply were admitted by the council. Would have been a different outcome if someone with experience of applying a standard and understanding what the terminology actually meant had given an opinion I think. With all the things that didn't comply when they seized them, I can't understand how they could justify hanging on to them for so long waiting until they grew to SEE if they might fit. And even then things still didn't comply.

Undesired by who? I know plenty of people who enjoy the APBT as a breed, I quite like them as well (if you haven't noticed) :laugh: I think regardless of whether you are a fan of the APBT or not, we all need to work together to remove these laws. The posts in this thread have opened my eyes up with how bad they actually are. In a perfect world Bear and Kooda would be the last dogs that fall victim to these laws. Totally agree. The law needs changing. Nobody is any safer with Bear and Kooda dead. That is what the law is meant to be all about. This system we have at the moment will be changed. No true dog lover would agree with these laws, whether the victim is purebred or a cross.

Both of those stories in the video from that link are old. I remember when they both happened. The recent on, yesterday or whenever, was either a Husky or Mal, but not the one mentioned in the video. I think those ones happened either early this year, or late last year, you can see it is summer too.

I don't think there is any set amount of the criteria that the dogs have to match. As far as I can see, it is up to VCAT to decide if the dog is restricted or not. I can't find anywhere in the legislation that states how many of the criteria in the standard that needs to be matched. Bslsux may know if this is correct or not. As bslsux has recommended, "I cannot emphasise enough that anyone seeking a review of the declaration of their dog as a restricted breed at VCAT must get an expert opinion on whether their dog fits the standard. " There is no set amount of the criteria that a dog has to match. One VCAT member said a dog whose review he preceded over met the criteria 100% (it absolutely did not and no dog on earth can fit every single characteristic). Poor Ace. Another, now the subject of Supreme Court action only met 50% of the criteria according to the Council but the VCAT member ruled the dog complied. Off topic, but, bslsux, was Ace the Ballarat dog? If not, what happened with the dog from Ballarat do you know?

No. So they were born before the amended BSL came in affect? Sorry Silvawillow, I amended my earlier post to answer correctly.

No, they were not born before the amnesty came into effect. They were born early 2011. They were 7 months old when seized in late September 2011.

I don't think there is any set amount of the criteria that the dogs have to match. As far as I can see, it is up to VCAT to decide if the dog is restricted or not. I can't find anywhere in the legislation that states how many of the criteria in the standard that needs to be matched. Bslsux may know if this is correct or not. As bslsux has recommended, "I cannot emphasise enough that anyone seeking a review of the declaration of their dog as a restricted breed at VCAT must get an expert opinion on whether their dog fits the standard. "

Thanks for that Bslsux, great info. :)

Koalathebear, I read that too, and all I could think of was that they had their wires crossed about what type of DNA test they were speaking of. I would have thought that a dna test of parentage would have been acceptable. I am wondering if one was talking dna breed test and the other dna parentage and the lines were crossed. And there was recently another man who won his VCAT case and it was reported he won using dna evidence.

Yes, very true Pebbles, however, VCA were the ones in on this with the Government and supplied and helped by having a dog judge write the Standard that is being used against cross breed dogs. So, if I had been paying money for companion membership, I would have been sold out by VCA. They knew of the Standard before we ever knew about it. They were in discussion with the Brumby government when the notion of a standard was first entered into the legislation.

The law needs changing, not the dogs. Purebred dogs can also suffer with this law. They don't rock up to pounds as strays with their paperwork. So if a purebred SBT or Amstaff or any other similar breed is at the pound, unclaimed that dog will be destroyed and have no hope of rescue. Microchips are often missed, moved, and info is often not updated. Bear and Kooda didn't even match the Standard.

And one could also ask, why are we putting up with this WRONG legislation? It isn't the dogs that are wrong, it is the law. The law will be changed before the dogs aren't bred, so I wouldn't be belly aching about that, as that is a waste of time.:)

Yes, we realise that, but there will never be a world where only purebred dogs exist. These dogs are all over the place and they are peoples pets. They do not fit the standard. Many characteristics do not match the standard. Have you seen the standard?

Although this situation is a very sad one and not that I agree with what the council did, but if the dogs did fit the Pitbull description where I mean obviously they weren't of a completely opposite appearance like a Husky or GSD look, what was the coucil supposed to do under the legislation, let it go because a BYB did a statutory declaration regarding the parents who's pedigrees couldn't more than likely be confirmed anyway??. Personally, I blame the breeders for producing dogs that fit these descriptions, regardless if they are BYB's or not, surely they need to be aware that breeding dogs of Pitbull appearance is asking for trouble given that Pitbull's have been restricted for a long time, they need to be more responsible in their breeding choices not to supply puppies that people aquire and love to have them seized and euthanised.......if they want to BYB, breed something safe from the authorities and legislation....the BYB market is still littered with Bull cross breeds and doesn't appear that these BYB's or puppy farmers or whatever are learning anything from these terrible situations unfolding As far as the "breeder" is concerned though they aren't breeding restricted breeds nor could they have predicted how the pups would turn out. While I don't agree with BYB these people really did nothing wrong either. Many many dogs could fit that standard, doesn't mean that the council have any right to put them down. The council could have registered the pups when the owners requested and left it at that. This didn't have to happen. Agree. And the dogs were seized when 7 months of age. They were re evaluated again when they were about 12 months old with different results on the Standard. Another thing, there is this note on the standard, and I don't think this was followed. To me, it is like the council seized them, and decided to hold them till they grew up to see what they looked like. How could they have made the declaration on 7 month old pups. Note from Standard. Note: Whilst this standard is based on a fully mature animal it would be expected that an individual puppy would reach the prescribed height and overall balance desired by the age of approximately 9 months. However body maturity and strength would not be achieved until much later – maybe two to three years plus. If possible the bitch and sire should be evaluated when considering the possibility of a puppy meeting this standard. The other thing is the owners were moving to NSW and had informed the council of this. They did move to NSW.. This is in the documentation. Even so, still there is a big question mark on how the council and vcat have interpreted the standard. There was another case, Tonka, and he was found not to be a restricted breed. He had a good result because the owners had on their side someone who could actually read and understand a Standard. His owners had an all breeds judge who had judged all over the world.

The owners didn't have anyone with them at VCAT unfortunately.

Although this situation is a very sad one and not that I agree with what the council did, but if the dogs did fit the Pitbull description where I mean obviously they weren't of a completely opposite appearance like a Husky or GSD look, what was the coucil supposed to do under the legislation, let it go because a BYB did a statutory declaration regarding the parents who's pedigrees couldn't more than likely be confirmed anyway??. Personally, I blame the breeders for producing dogs that fit these descriptions, regardless if they are BYB's or not, surely they need to be aware that breeding dogs of Pitbull appearance is asking for trouble given that Pitbull's have been restricted for a long time, they need to be more responsible in their breeding choices not to supply puppies that people aquire and love to have them seized and euthanised.......if they want to BYB, breed something safe from the authorities and legislation....the BYB market is still littered with Bull cross breeds and doesn't appear that these BYB's or puppy farmers or whatever are learning anything from these terrible situations unfolding Are you saying these dogs look like pitbulls? They don't fit the standard. The council only has one or two days training on how to read a standard. I really would not call them experts when it comes to reading and applying a standard. The sire and dam of these dogs are cleared of being restricted breeds.