Aphra

I agree with Andrea on this one. I do understand that you've had a rough experience with fostering, and you've come into the Rescue Forum to have a bit of a rant and share your disappointment. But I am often dismayed by people who have a bad experience with one rescue, and then make the assumption that it's an issue which other rescues should somehow address. There are hundreds and hundreds of rescue groups, some great, some not-so-great. There are also lots of new rescue groups started up in the last year or so, and clearly many of them are still struggling to learn the ropes. Are there rescue groups who don't help and support their foster carers? Sure there are. Are there rescue groups who train, mentor and support their foster carers? Sure. And that's no different than any other facet of human society. I do think that there is a certain element of personality in rescue which turns to rescue because they don't deal well with humans, trouble is, rescue is all about the humans. It's great that you have taken a breath and found another organisation which might better match your needs and values. I think there's a good lesson in there ... one of the great things about being a volunteer is that you can withdraw your labour at any time and go find someone who will truly value your time and commitment. What's really important is that if you want to foster, you find a rescue group which shares your values and that you meet the people you are going to be working with, and develop an understanding of them and their goals. If you don't like/approve then there are many other rescue groups which will value your experience. You need to work with people who are a comfortable fit with your own personality and style as well. I've seen lots of working relationships collapse because of a mismatch in personality types. As for paying foster carers ... in an ideal world maybe, but there would be few, if any, rescue groups with the resources. I'm also a bit wedded to the idea of volunteering as a good, in and of, itself. Shmoo has written an excellent book on foster caring which you can download from ... somewhere? (big blank here). You could also do the MDBA foster care program and look for a group who is a member of the MDBA, which might help ensure a good fit between your expectations and their ethics. I hope your next foster care experience goes well.

I know at least one person who is working with AARF and have heard a number of presentations from them about their research. They have been doing some terrific work in areas such as temperament testing for dogs; researching aggression; looking at the issues which influence adoptions and surrenders and they've done a couple of really good projects around pet friendly planning in urban areas. They frequently present to the Australian Institute of Animal Management (essentially the body which represents local laws officers (rangers) conferences about these issues. They do some really excellent work.

There's a recent thread on this forum about choosing a rescue group (from the perspective of an adopter or potential fosterer) which might be helpful. It was a couple of weeks back, but a search should bring it up, or just hunt through a few back pages. There are lots of good rescue groups, but if you're not sure, you can always ask on here. People will be able to gently point you in the right direction. :-)

Frank lost a dog to parvo at West Wyalong the other day, and one of our Broken Hill puppies is currently at the vet with parvo, so worth noting and being extra cautious about quarantine. I know its always around and no reason not to take dogs, but worth keeping it in mind and being careful, particularly with young dogs.

Summary of the research: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dogs-best-friend/201208/why-do-some-dogs-chase-their-tails The research paper http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0041684

Having read a few too many stories about people having their children bitten by dogs they have sourced from Pound Rounds, it's really clear that the people attracted to PR's incredibly sentimental and devoid-of-real-information descriptions, are exactly the kinds of people who shouldn't be adopting some of these dogs. Clearly people are well-meaning, but inexperienced and/or clueless, so that the initial error of the kind of dog they get, is compounded by a lack of capacity to assess, manage or train it. I'm not opposed to cutting a few corners if it means more dogs get out; people adopt dogs from pounds every day and it generally works out OK. If all PR were doing was publicising the available dogs and maybe raising funds to subsidise pound adoptions, I wouldn't be concerned so much. But by inserting themselves into the process, so that people think they are adopting from a rescue group, and thinking, from the descriptions, that they are adopting a trouble-free dog, PR are behaving unethically. I find their distinction between private adoption and rescue work really squirrelly because they can use it to absolve themselves from responsibility. I don't care if they call it a fancy acronym, it's basically suckering people into taking dogs and hoping that fate will work things out. The fact that things do work out is a credit to the fact that most dogs are solid citizens and most people well-meaing, and both do their best, whatever the circumstances, but it doesn't make PR's approach right. I am really angry about them moving bull-breed types into Victoria with the kind of legislation we have. Lots of people don't understand the legislation anyway, so PR are putting people and the dogs at risk.

Do feel free to add your own laws of rescue, I'm sure there are more than this. 1. The number of emails your receive about an animal from an individual is directly inverse proportion to the chances of them adopting or even turning up to a meeting. 2. When someone is so impatient to meet an animal that they convince you to schedule a meeting at a time (during the week, at night, early in the morning) when you wouldn't usually schedule a meeting, there is a 100% chance that they will cancel that meeting at the last minute and you'll never hear from them again. 3. If people say they want to adopt a dog or cat and then ring later to change their mind they always tell you it's because their husband has just lost his job.

It could be anything from an infection to worms, gastro or parvovirus. Probably a vet visit is called for in the morning. Maybe keep an eye on stools and keep fluids up until then? Fingers crossed its nothing serious.

I love watching dogs work things out. My cattle dog, who is not a super clever dog once left me gobsmacked with his ability to problem solve. We were going through a big set of gates at the bottom of my run. He would normally just go under the gates, but because the run slopes downwards and the wind had blow the gates upwards there wasn't any space. Like this: \ /. He stood on his hind legs, gave the gates a push outwards, which sent them down the slope making a space, like this: / \ and under and off he went.

Really, how scarily smart is this dog? http://cynography.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/making-lemonade.html

Why would Dogs Victoria be offering themselves to identify restricted breeds of dog when they don't actually register any of those breeds? If anything it smacks to me of a nasty political move to try and prevent any attempt to include more registered breeds into the lists of restricted breeds (WA is trying to include Mastiffs and mastiff xs). If that's the case and they think throwing cross-breed dogs onto the fire will protect registered breeds they might as well change their name to "Only Some Dogs Victoria". There was some interesting research done in the US around the ability of shelter staff to identify Pit Bulls or Pit Bull xs. Turns out, most people are pretty bad at it. Research is here: http://www.maddiesfund.org/Documents/Resource%20Library/Incorrect%20Breed%20Identification%20Study%20Poster.pdf

What is making me laugh is that all the dogs look really ashamed of themselves, and the couple of cats are all, "yeah, so?".

I'd actively oppose any further legislation in the area. One because I don't believe that more and more punitive legislation is going to make a difference, and because pretty much all of the animal welfare legislation we have got recently has been dreadful, poorly thought-out, knee-jerk policy heavily influenced by large organisations with their own agendas. I'm not in favour of compulsory desexing either. I'm probably a bit of a libertarian and don't feel that we can solve social problems caused by a few people, by making life difficult for everyone else. I am very much in favour of heavily subsidised desexing. Mt Alexander Shire in Victoria has offered low-cost desexing for residents, and it has had a huge impact on their stray cat population. If only Ballarat Council had spent the $100,000 they wasted on VCAT trying to kill one dog, on subsidising desexing for hundreds of other dogs. I don't think backyard breeders are ever going to go away, it's a practice as old as domestication of dogs. I think the answer has to lie in helping people make better choices about where they get their dogs from, helping them understand why health tests are important, giving them some tools to help them choose wisely and make it easier for them to get nice dogs from reputable places than from puppy farms and pet shops. And although it's probably anathema to pedigreed breeders, perhaps some advice and education for those people who are producing a couple of litters of fluffy puppies in their own homes might be useful. If they're going to do it anyway, as they are, they might as well do it as well as they can and produce healthy, well socialised puppies. Even in the few years I've been doing rescue I've noticed much more awareness of the issues from people who talk to us; more people are actively choosing rescue dogs because they want to make a difference.

There are baby hatches in some hospitals. I think there is one at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. Not all of the "mini pens" (which is what the pounds call the pens which open to the outside) have chutes. Mildura Pound has four which are just self-closing gates. The idea of the mini pens is for people to be able to place dogs which they've found wandering, but people often use them to dump unwanted animals. At Wagga one day I saw a litter of baby kittens, not more than five or six weeks old. No mum, just a lot of little babies. Funny story. I was at Mildura Pound doing a pick-up one day and there were a couple of little Shar Pei Xs in the mini-pens. We were in the pound looking at dogs and these two little dogs appeared and trotted up to us for cuddles. They were put back in the mini-pens, and five minutes later, reappeared. We put them back and then watched and the little guy stood up on the edge of the water dish and flipped the catch and let him and his girlfriend out. It's not hard to see why they were found wandering. Luckily their owner turned up half an hour later and reclaimed them.

At best its someone ignorant who just didn't think that the drop would hurt the puppy. What an adorable baby, those eyes like a baby owl. I'm sure all rescuers understand your distress, but concentrate instead on all the people, including you, who have stepped forward to help this baby. I always think of the percentages, and way more people have helped this puppy than injured it. It's a gorgeous baby and I'm sure will heal well.

Like this dog? This article always cracks me up. I know the dog did wrong, but when I read it I just get the sense of the dog, night after night, restraining himself despite the temptation. And then one night, he just can't help himself. Then I laugh imagining just how much fun he had. His sign would read, "I ate Elvis' teddy". http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14154738/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/elvis-teddy-bear-leaves-building-hard-way/#.UDWDkdm6VnM

This is a really sensible and thoughtful response! The dog fancy, as in the pedigreed dog world, is only about 100 years old. You could probably argue that it is a cultural product of the Victorian drive to classify the world, and is more a reflection of an historical concern in a particular context than anything else. Certainly breeders have always cared about bloodlines, but in the context of breeding dogs they knew could perform the job they were wanted for ... that didn't necessarily mean people who bred within a system. There are backyard breeders who are cross-breeding dogs, for whatever purpose, but are producing healthy, well-cared for dogs. There are backyard breeders who are breeding anything to anything to make money. There are commercial puppy breeders who are breeding for no other reason than to produce incredibly cute puppies and a profit. There are farmers and hunters breeding cross-breed dogs, but doing it carefully, to produce dogs that will work for them. There are lots of shades of grey (and how I hate those books for hijacking a useful phrase!) when thinking about BYBs. I understand why registered breeders disapprove of cross-breeding, but the reality is that the backyard breeder tradition is a whole lot older and more common than pedigreed breeders. Although I'm very pro-rescue, I'm not anti-pedigree breeder, I've owned pedigreed dogs and cats myself, but I've also owned mixed breed mutts and loved them too. In many ways, the small scale backyard breeder producing a few litters of puppies and finding homes for them, is much less problematic for me than the large-scale commercial breeders breeding dozens of litters and shipping them all over the country and internationally. Cross-breeding of dogs isn't going to stop, but I'd really like to be able to halt the flow of puppies from commercial breeders (and no, I don't believe Oscar's Law is the solution).

She's beautiful Ams I'm sure you'll have lots of fun with her. Just out of curiosity, and you can PM me, who is the breeder? I know one WA breeder who has lovely dogs and I was wondering if she was one of theirs.

I'm assuming that by "hard core breed (fighting or guard dog types) " you mean the guardian breeds (mastiff-types, Rottweilers, Shepherds and etc?) I'd hate people to think that those kinds of dogs are necessarily dog or human aggressive by nature. Guardian breeds should show stability and good judgement about what constitutes a threat. Random aggression is a sign of an anxious, fearful dog or unstable dog. While timidity is certainly found in the mastiffs, it is a breed fault, and guardian breeds displaying this behaviour should be managed as anxious and fearful dogs. It's not about their breed, it's about their behaviour. My Neo bitch was quite an unstable dog, she was timid, although not aggressive, with people, and could be randomly aggressive with other dogs, although mostly she was pretty dog social. She disliked new situations and hated leaving home. In familiar surroundings with dogs she knew, she was happy and content. Forcing her out to socialise with strangers would have distressed her enormously. I'm sure you mean well with your advice, and for lots of dogs more exercise and fun with other dogs is an excellent way of keeping them happy, but it should be on a dog-by-dog basis, and highly dog aggressive dogs need serious and well-informed management. I was interested in your first statement about walking dogs long after they've been rescued. When is a rescue dog no longer a rescue dog? I don't think of our dogs as some special category of scared and abused animals, they are just dogs who got a bit unlucky. Out of of our care and into a new home they are just dogs. We encourage our adopters not to make special allowances for their new dogs as "poor rescue dogs", but to treat them as any dog with clear rules and expectations.

Having rescued a fair number of dogs over the last few years I have to disagree that most rescue dogs have socialization issues in any real sense. 99 percent of the dogs we've had, given time to settle, have been fine with other dogs. Not necessarily every single dog, but in a non-threatening situation with calm introductions, they've all made friends with other dogs. The major issue I face are dogs which lack good manners with other dogs; it's not that they're not friendly. It they don't know how to make friends politely. I suspect many of those dogs left their mums too early as puppies, or didn't have exposure to sensible, older dogs. Rescue dogs are not a special category of dogs, they are just dogs, with all the different kinds of behaviour that other dogs in the community display. I do agree that exercise and good food are important, but consistent leadership to build confidence and calm routines and training are important too. But for very reactive or fearful dogs exposure to other dogs needs to be very careful and controlled. I can't really imagine much scarier for a fearful dog than being muzzled or restrained in a dog park.

All my big dogs are dead now (it's not been a good couple of years for my giant babies) but for a while I had two Neapolitan Mastiffs and a Mastiff and did rescue. My Mastiff was great with other dogs and was excellent at teaching good manners. My Neos, not so much, but we managed. LOL I miss my big dogs so much, so if you have the opportunity to have a Mastiff in your life, I say go for it. No-one can manage to rescue well if they are sad, resentful and bitter because they deny themselves all the time. Dealing with rescue dogs you need a kind of generosity and joyfulness to deal with the dogs, and that doesn't come from grudging yourself happiness. I'd have another Neo in a heartbeat if I could afford one, the kind of relationship you have with the really big guys is special and something you should have in your life. :-)

One of my cats did this to me once. I was staying in an old house in a little country town. Being a city girl at that stage I was a bit un-nerved by the silence anyway. Both of my cats were asleep on my bed, then one of them woke me up in the middle of the night by sitting up and growling, all her fur sticking up on her back. She just stared into space and growled. Eventually she settled down and curled up and went back to sleep, which was more than I did!

I couldn't not contact people! With my fosters I really need to know how they're doing so that I can content myself that it's a good placement and they're happy. I'm also quite shameless in asking for photos.

It's about setting expectations at the beginning. We have a two week trial period, and we tell people that we'll follow up a few times in the trial. We'll generally check in a day or two after they go home, at the end of the first week and at the end of the second week to ask if the dog (or cat) is staying. I'll sometimes follow up a couple of months later with dogs who might be a bit more of a challenge or with puppies. It's not stalking if you tell people you'll be contacting them. Sometimes people are a bit reluctant to ask for help if things aren't going well, so some contact might flush the issue out, which means you have a chance to intervene and help. Most people like to tell you how well their new dog is doing and appreciate the contact.

What are we actually talking about when we're talking about DA or HA? I know what it means in the expression of behaviour, but what is the drive in the dog being triggered? Aggression is inherent in being alive, it's the way animals gain and protect resources, including food, territory and mates, so some level of aggression is pretty much necessary for survival. As Haresdown said, the herding instinct is modified prey drive, so what I'd like to understand is what is at the base of DA and HA? Because I think we lump a lot of behaviours together in that basket, but the cause of those behaviours is not always the same. My Neos would probably have been considered dog aggressive, but they weren't in the sense that most people think of dog to dog aggression. As a guarding breed they had a very strong pack drive, which expressed itself in high erritoriality ... a bit like a clique of teenage girls. So for dogs within their pack they were non-reactive, playful and friendly, dogs outside the pack were a threat to be driven away. They could accept new dogs into the pack, but it took a bit of time, they weren't automatically friendly. For some dogs DA is reactivity, which I'm guessing is form of prey drive. It's pretty typical of terriers, because they were bred for hunting small, fast animals and needed to be quick of the mark. So those dogs have a low tolerance level but high tenacity. A terrier which saw a mouse and took ten minutes to decide to chase it, or got bored halfway and gave up wouldn't have been much use. For some dogs DA is fear, and they see offense as the easiest form of defence. So if someone was breeding dogs to be extremely dog aggressive, what are they selecting for genetically? A very high level of reactivity and a very high prey drive that will see other dogs as prey? Extreme pack drive? Extremely fearful dogs? And what is being selected for with HA dogs? I'd pretty much assumed that HA was a combination of lack of good experiences with humans/socialization combined with dogs who were very fearful. I suppose it might also be a very dominant dog with poor human socialization, but the truly dominant dog is, I think, pretty rare. I'm just guessing here, there are clearly people who know this stuff and can explain. I just wonder if it would help if we understood what was actually going on, rather than just lumping behaviours which are expressed in a similar fashion, but have very different causality, together.