♥Bruno♥

I gave in and listened to it. To me, it sounds like a dog? Bruno does a similar very very low growl when strangers come. But it could also definitely be a man. Tough one. Thankfully your dogs were a big enough deterrant for them not to enter the house. Definitely report it to the police.

pot, kettle...black! Some people have balls to de-rail threads and use judgements against people they know nothing about, except the "research" they have read. Several people in a FIFO situation have replied, but you have chosen to ignore them, because their comments are logical and don't back your stupid judgements. So what about people who want to buy a dog, then seperate and the dog spends one week with each partner? How is that any different to spending time at a kennel? At least in a decent kennel you know the dog will be well cared for. In someone's home you have no idea what happens.

Yes we've had a couple of dogs die from rat bait poisoning. Never had one survive, but that's not to say your dog wont make it. We use Bromakil, so depending on the type of bait ingested and how much would depend on the outcome. I hope Sally makes a full recovery, sounds like you got her to the vet asap which might help her chances.

Oh FFS what kind of sick loonie would be in a burning house and think 'hmm...dog or child...hmmm DOG!' Seriously, you need your head read if you truly believe that is what you would do. You obviousy have no human contact apart from the internet so see your dogs as your family. Guess what? As much as we all love our dogs, they are DOGS! Animals! Not human! How would you feel if someone had to make that decision, between you and their dog? What an absolute twit. Honestly.

Oh killing wombats is terrible! I had no idea. We don't even have wombats in WA (or koalas, or platypus!) so I guess I am oblivious to the damage they can cause.

Camel meat is lovely, we ate a lot of that in Broome. Nekhbet - your comment about farmers poisoning native wildlife that eat their crops? Do you have anything to back that claim up with? Sounds quite stupid to me actually. Native wildlife, (I assume you mean kangaroos?) doesn't make much of a dent at all. It is the mice plagues that do damage over East. And if you are talking about kangaroos, you are either referring to hobby farmers who grow crops on a very small scale, or I've missed the point completely, which is possible :laugh: We have lots of kangaroos and emus on all our properties and yes they do eat the crops, but not enough to even consider wasting time or money poisoning them for.

lovemymutts - it defeats the purpose to have a working dog tied to the back of a ute while working. They jump on and off as told/required, to stop the ute and unhitch them all the time and hitch them back on is just not feasible.

Our dogs basically live on the utes. I guess they dont drive long distances on roads on the back, so we never tether them. We have found it is much easier on a dog to slide off a tray than be tethered and hang themselves trying to jump off. However if I was driving on open roads I would use a very short chain and some sort of rubber matting underfoot.

Wow, I just caught up on this thread! Such a wealth of information in here, thanks to everyone for sharing. We have decided against the idea of using Maremmas. They just aren't suited to our needs, but I am in such awe of the work they do. We are currently building our sheep numbers and are close to 30,000 at the moment, which means by this time next year we may be well over 40,000. We don't feel that it is feasible to run as many dogs as we would need to, to ensure stock losses are reduced to a point where the dogs are paying for themselves. This is mainly due to the mob structure we run and the paddock set up. However in the future who knows! We are looking into the possibility of trialling the Maremmas on just the stud flock, so maybe 5,000-10,000 sheep and seeing how they go. But this will be in the future, once a lot more research has been done by us. Like most things with farming, it comes down to cost vs benefit and at the moment we can't justify it. Total bummer for me, but I think a lot of it is the fact that I just love dogs and love the thought of having more

I don't think the person is re-homing the dog due to the incident in the news recently, more that the dog has slowly been getting more aggro and their JRT was hurt badly the other day by the dog. I had messaged her and she said that she had rung up quite a few pounds and shelters herself and all of them told her to PTS So that's what they did this morning. Very sad story and not something I have ever had to deal with before, on a personal level. Thanks for all the advice anyway, I do appreciate it.

Someone on my Facebook just posted that she needs to re-home her dog. It is a 6 yr old American Staffy, female, de-sexed, microchipped, 22kgs. Great with humans but not good with other dogs. I don't know anything more at this stage, but I thought I would ask on here to see if anyone knows of any suggestions? The dog is located in Melbourne. I can ask the owner questions through Facebook. I just asked if she is from a pet shop and she said 'not from a shop, we know her parents though" Not sure what that means. She said they have to get rid of her as they have 2 staffy's and a JRT too Is anyone interested or can you give me some helpful advice to pass onto this person.

84 dogs does sound like a hell of a lot though. If he was a legitimate reputable breeder, don't they aim for quality over quantity? (I'm not a breeder, thats just an assumption) Keeping and maintaining 84 dogs would require a lot of work, and more money than a job at a pet shop could supply you with. Not saying he is a puppy farmer, but you know what they say - if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it's probably a duck?

So sorry to hear this Jules. RIP Brock, a very special dog

Thanks Steve! Ok, I did have the total wrong end of the stick! So really they are treated like sheep, not like dogs (don't mean that in a negative way). Obviously they would receive different food, but apart from that, they just hang about in the paddocks with the sheep. The Dunlunce case study is just amazing. Have printed it out for hubby to read

Thanks espinay and persephone, for the links. I am on shaped speed at the moment (damn crappy satellite internet!) so will check them out at an off-peak time. Thanks again for the info, I really do appreciate it.

Thanks Steve. It seems like a major undertaking to take on ten (or more) dogs. They would obviously need to be fed every night, and we just don't go out to the mobs every day except at lambing time. There is no way in Haiti we could have ten large dogs hanging about the house yard when lambing isn't on, and we don't have time to drive to paddocks and feed dogs every night. We have three properties down here and they are 25 k's apart, so it's a long way to drive just to drop off dog food. As it is, the ewes are spread over 3,000 acres, and when they're not lambing, the sheep would be anywhere over 25,000 acres, so it's a big job to keep track of where the dogs are and go and feed them. As you can tell, I need to do a heap more research!! And it is starting to sound like the Maremma option is more suited to smaller producers. Back to the drawing board! But many thanks to everyone for the info

Thanks Cas - I never thought of donkeys. A few people around here have Alpacas and everyone says they are a waste of time and money and are just a marketing gimmick. There are constant Give Away ads in the local paper, ex "sheep guardians", so that puts me off them. One of my chickens had her tail bitten off last night, so they are obviously out in force. Thankfully the chook pen is fox proof, but her tail must have been sticking through the wire as she roosted.

Thanks for the info everyone. Monique we have about 5000 ewes lambing over about 3,000 acres, so that's why I wanted to know how many dogs would be necessary

I still wear my GAP bright red T-Shirt :D Lots of people always aks me about it, and I think its hilarious when they ask me if I adopted Bruno through GAP (he is a rather large Ridgeback ) Love the work GAP does and it is the only dog rescue type group I donate my bucks to now.

Sorry, just saw this thread after posting one of my own. Yes, it could be foxes. We are having major problems with them at the moment. Foxes WILL just crush windpipes to kill. We have had ewes with their lambs literally eaten as they came out of the birth canal, leaving them half in the mother (resulting in the ewe death too). We have also seen a lot of tails and spinal cords been pulled. The foxes are getting more sadistic this year, sadly.

Hi everyone We are currently lambing and losing up to 50 lambs per night (that's $7,500 in one night). We have obviously done everything we can legally do to stop the fox attacks, but we are now desperate for another solution. Baiting, shooting, traps and luring have all been successful, but there is obviously just a lot more foxes out this year than we could have ever estimated. We are having 20 to 30 baits taken per night (could be taken by more than one fox of course) so we would have expected to see a rapid decrease in attacks, but unfortunatly this hasn't been the case. We went shooting and shot 13 foxes in 2 hours. Numbers like that are just unprecedented around here. The last two seasons have seen excellent fox breeding conditions, and they are almost in plague proportions now. Some nights it is only 5 or 6, some nights it is 20, and the worst night was 50 dead lambs. We have had them autopsied and the foxes are simply squashing their wind pipes. Sometimes there is no sign of a fox attack apart from the teeth imprint around the neck. They generally eat the first couple, then just chase and kill the next few for fun. So we are now looking into Maremma dogs. Does anyone have any experience with them as sheep guardians? Do you need one dog per mob? We have 7 mobs lambing at the moment. What do the dogs do the rest of the year? Are they general sheepdogs too, or more pet type dogs when not guarding lambs? ANy info would be well appreciated. Thanks.

Love it! Bruno doesn't wink (that I've noticed) but what a cute little habit!

What I want to know is why your kelpies are so damn clean?!! Mine can't resist mud/water/sheep poo/dead animals/unidentifiable muck.... (Edit to Add - I realise yours are show kelpies, mine are working dogs) Culling is very common place. There is no home for a useless working dog. It wont become a family pet in town as it will always want to wander and work with stock. It can't live on the farm as it is untrustworthy and gets into mischief, and is an unwelcome distraction for working dogs and stock alike. It is a very sad fact, but very common Hence why kelpies should only be bred by people who know what they are breeding with and willing to put in the work to create a good working dog.

But wait, there's more I iz such a man I love those jammies!!!!! Only problem is that now Bruno sleeps outside so they would get filthy.

I feel for you, I honestly do. It is such a sticky situation. We have dogs coming onto our land quite often, as in the country people seem to be even more lax about keeping their dogs contained. My husband has had to shoot many dogs, usually young pups who are far too eager and want to chase sheep, often chasing them until they are at the point of exhaustion and then need to be put down due to broken legs etc (the sheep). No one wants to kill another animal, it always makes you feel like crap, but you did what you had to do to protect your stock