Are You Serious Jo

Ok, time for some facts. Seawater has a salt concentration of about 3.5% which translates to about 3.5 g/L. One tablespoon of salt/cup = 20g/250mls or 80g/L. So seawater is actually quite different to 1 tbs/250mls.

How many of you that are anti-docking have had their pets desexed?

I would've thought tradition was not docking. What, as in when they were the wolf ancestors? Domestic dogs have been modified for their roles for a long time, both through artificial selection and physically.

I hate the look of the tails on traditionally docked breeds. Next will be no removal of dew claws.

In a lot of your posts you describe your dogs being disobedient and in others out of your control so I would not suggest you attempt to teach others until you have grasped the basics yourself. Tricks and obedience are two different things.

If Steve (K9 pro) was teaching it it would be a good thing, if you, not so much because you lack the necessary experience

So you are saying that you are legally allowed to keep pest species in NSW or that you had a permit? From your description the poor thing lived a very stressed life, some wild animals don't make good pets, hence why people are discouraged from keeping wild things.

Err... it is! So call me a do-gooder for caring about cruelty to animals? Shadecloth used in the same way will keep them out and the snakes won't get caught in it. Sure beats the hell out of an angry snake in pain dying in your netting. But hey, wouldn't want to be considered a do-gooder or something. :rolleyes: Shadecloth and fine wire won't catch them and they can't be disposed of that way. a) That is illegal. So is keeping hares in captivity, are you selective on which laws should be followed now?

It's very clear once it has been explained, so I can only guess that they don't care what happens to registered breeders, in which case why are they here?

I would hope you would have the good sense not to tie it up in a public place and go wandering off to leave it alone. Of course not, but what if I'm at a place with my dog on lead and someone takes his/her pic and I don't know it? Do you think that because the owner wasn't there they deserve to have their dog's picture used without their permission? Payback? It's very simple, just ask for people to only supply pictures of their own dogs and no one needs to worry about ethical issues. I can't believe this hasn't been drummed into students, one of mine would get a serious arse kicking from me if they used a private picture without permission from the subject/owner.

He did follow the sheep on the screen It was a lucky shot, grabbed the camera and put the flash on and got it before he moved back and watched it from a few feet.

Can you explain how? It will see the end of many small kennels who breed and show, but create a huge market for legal puppy farmers. Hobby farmers don't have the funds that puppy farmers have so they won't be able to comply. Puppy farms won't ever be abolished, all this will do is ensure they have a greater market share.

Just paves the way for large scale puppy farms that have the government tick of approval. Awesome that the RSPCA now have more powers, they didn't bother investigating genuine cases before why would they now?

We watched the Landline segment just on and Leo decided it was must see TV and didn't take his eyes off it

There you go, owner approved as well

I wouldn't be happy for a picture of my dog to be used without my permission that shows it in an aggressive stance, would you? I think ethics committees go overboard a lot these days but in the case of using an image of someone's pet that depicts it in a negative light they have a right to act. If the owner put that picture up on the web themselves as an example of an aggressive posture then sure, use it and credit the site. But the owner has no clue. At the end of the day it's not about what you can do legally, but what you should do ethically.

I'm not talking about the legality of photo usage, as I said, when you are an academic you have a set of standards you must adhere to. People have been reported to their ethics committees for much less.

Academics are held to a higher standard than people just taking snaps in the park. You may give permission for your photo to be used but the owner of the dog hasn't. Whether the owner was present or not or whether you think it is ok to use the photo is irrelevant in the academic context. Trust me, you don't want a complaint about your conduct going to your uni.

I wouldn't suggest using a photo of a dog unless you get permission from the owner of the dog, not just the photographer. I'd be furious if someone used a picture of one of my dogs without my permission in any type of research and I'd be complaining to the ethics committee loudly.

They did try to dart them, but realistically, you have to put human lives before animals. They should be grateful he didn't let loose chimps, they are far worse that large carnivores. So sad, but the police had no choice.

It's more fun if you don't tell her

Ok, I was there from 8am to nearly 6! Tomorrow there will be about 25 dogs run, then the finals after that I think. Sheep were ratty and most retired. Only two got their sheep penned. Two sheep were so bad 4 dogs and lots of handlers couldn't get them off the field. Took about half and hour and they had to be run down and carried off! Some of the top sheep men and women are there so if you want to it would be worth it. If you come up I'll be outside the clubhouse with the merle koolie, can't miss us. Meant to say Landline where there all day, they filmed my boy so he might pop up on TV it will air next Sunday.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to go back to the bad old days of research free for all that was harmful. But the pendulum has swung way too far and unis are worried they are going to be sued by disgruntled subjects. Some of the objections they raise are basically ridiculous and some things they want would totally invalidate your work. I'd rather not do a project under those conditions. Far worse when I'm doing human based work, not as bad for animal stuff, though when I did some personality in apes data collecting it was not too bad. It was part of a major survey and I feel dirty even writing that In regards to using the human personality dimensions that is ok and what we do in comparative psych. But you need to know how to cater for whatever species you are using in terms of experimental set up and have your definitions very carefully thought out. People do additional work to add or amend the dimensions all the time, so you can do change them. Personality research in animals is so hot right now

You can ask RevJo about that, not a simple matter unfortunately. The data is already out there, I'm not sure how much more we need, but it's being ignored anyway. Do you think the scientific community can do better in communicating these ideas? I think they probably can, we can always do better in anything really. We couldn't get ethics approval to do what we really wanted to do to explore the factors involved in dog attacks. We did some work on the issue but I was keen to really get stuck into it in depth. I'm one of the few people in the position of having a good working knowledge of purebred dogs, BSL and research. But sadly ethics committees are extremely conservative these days.

As a research scientist who has done dog cognition studies I can vouch for how much I value science. What I don't value is flawed research and bad attitudes and misreporting in the media. My first port of call when working on a new species is to suck the brains of the keepers or enthusiasts, to do so eliminates errors such as you've seen. It wasn't by accident that I got an international award from an honours project, I know my stuff when it comes to experimental design. I see some major problems with this study from what has been posted here. Now more than ever we need to counteract erroneous media reports as purebred dogs are in crisis due to some researchers agendas. So when did you publish your last paper raineth, you seem quick to support corvus despite knowledgeable people's concerns, you must have some research experience no?