Maddy

Yes, this may be the only way, to keep a muzzle on when he is unsupervised. I'd still recommend plenty of chew items, but to stock him eating the lawnfood etc, a muzzle might be the only way. Leaving a muzzled dog unsupervised is incredibly dangerous and stupid. I tend to agree its dangerous, especially when you have 2 dogs and one of them is Gus lol, so I dont think I would muzzle him, but crating could work... after reading everyones posts mental stimulation would be our friend here. Having actual food around is out of the question unless both dogs are seperated. There are different types of muzzle. You would need a basket style, one that allows panting and drinking. But yes, not recommended for extended periods.When the dog is home alone, distractions such as tots and chews may help, but ultimately separating him from potentially harmful “edibles” is the only option. It's not just a matter of being able to pant or drink. I'm very familiar with the different types of muzzles and all of them involve some kind of strap around the head. Many dogs can remove them anyway if they get a few minutes to work at it and if the muzzle is made tight enough to prevent that, you're placing the dog at serious risk if it snags the muzzle on something. It doesn't matter how long the muzzle is on for, unsupervised is unsupervised, an accident can happen in a matter of minutes.

My emails don't seem to be getting through so posting here- Sam, could you send down Sandi's paperwork? Thanks! :D

Yes, this may be the only way, to keep a muzzle on when he is unsupervised. I'd still recommend plenty of chew items, but to stock him eating the lawnfood etc, a muzzle might be the only way. Leaving a muzzled dog unsupervised is incredibly dangerous and stupid.

So how long does 440g of SuperBoost last? I thought for one moment it only lasted 5 days In my situation - I use the full 440g container of SuperBoost and add it to the 5.5 days' worth of veggie mix that I prepare. Yep - it lasts me only 5.5 days . To each veggie mix patty I've made (which includes 1/11th of the 440g SuperBoost - Mandela gets 2 x veggie patties per day, along with 2 x serves of 500g of roo mince, if not a bit more here and there). But if this gets me to help his system back on track and steady, then for the time being I'm prepared to keep this up for as long as I am able. Heaven knows, I've spent a fortune on him with loads of other things I've been trying in the past. What's a little more fortune? :D. Mind you, Phivo, the guy behind Augustine Approved+, has been immensely and sincerely helpful towards my efforts to see Mandela right. Which is good, because on DOL he was a right twat. Ah, yes. I remember some of the threads and to say I have a low opinion of him is something of an understatement. I think it's also worth pointing out that any advice given by this person is entirely unqualified advice- and a lot of that advice and information actually relates to the health benefits of ingredients for humans, not dogs (and even then, claims are made that are dubious at best). Maybe I'm a dog food snob but I like some actual ethics with my food, rather than holisitc, organic, fake ethics >.> Just to give a better example here.. the following claims have been made- Entirely subjective and not borne out by testing anyway. Again, incorrect and with many studies done on the subject. Protect them from what, existing? Organic food needs more cleared land to grow, requires more water to maintain and if we switched all crops to organic, two thirds of the world would very literally have NO food. Organic helps the wealthy people feel superior, it does not help the poor or the hungry and in my opinion, it's disgusting elitism. I could continue with the examples but I think the above is really all you need. There is nothing ethical about organic food (unless you're growing it in your own backyard).

The problem is, many people do take it literally and god help you if you conform to the correct meaning of the term. To clarify a question I was asked, I wrote a short article explaining no kill and my position (which was that rehomable dogs are kept as long as needed, provided it didn't compromise on their welfare) and I got savaged by people calling me a "kill shelter" - along with the usual lovely abusive emails from fake accounts to call me a monster/murderer/whatever. The hardcore no kill groups are now actively damaging the reputations of other groups, denying them the donations needed to actually save lives. Counter-productive and short-sighted but there you go. While I agree with no kill as a concept, I think compassion needs to balanced with a little bit of common sense. A dog that can't be rehomed doesn't deserve to languish in a cage until it eventually dies (alone and after years of misery). That death, in my opinion, is far more callous than giving the dog a good feed, a final play and then having the vet put it to sleep while its carer holds it.

Yep! Exactly that. Somebody else could take the dangerous dogs and keep them forever, it's just that Nobody happens to be that Somebody. Curiouser and curiouser..

That's kind of where I'm at with kenneling and what I got from Greytmates post. They need a higher level of everything the longer they are there. And cared for properly, can live happily as many do in racing or breeding facilities. If you're running on a shoestring and struggling to do the minimum then unrehomeables are not going to have a quality of life at all. Or somebody is missing out while the resident high maintenance animals drain resources. "No-kill" -- I'm just completely over hearing it. Because people interpret the slogan as gospel. Therefore rescues/pounds must be evil when a dog is PTS and it becomes a life at all cost argument. (Oh but nobody protesting happens to want that dog in their home.) Again, haven't seen this shelter so no comment there. Just in general. Exactly. I've been attacked over putting to sleep aggressive dogs instead of keeping but if would any of those attackers put their hand up to take on a dog that attacks any other dog it sees? You can bet your ass that they'd not. Funny how that works. As for the long-term kenneling issue.. unless quality of life can be assured for the dog, I don't think it's the ethical thing to be doing. Compromising on welfare for the sake of numbers is vanity, not love.

This. If they followed instructions and took reasonable precautions against injury/illness, we'd cover the bills. If they hadn't, we'd probably still cover the bills but the dog would be coming back to us- if someone can't be bothered to look out for the safety of their new pet, what are the care standards going to be like when the novelty wears off?

Partially because they are a softer target. For example, if an animal rights group told a breeder that they were doing the wrong thing, the breeder would tell the animal rights nutter to f*** off and not only would it not impact on their business, they'd almost certainly have the full support of other greyhound breeders. If the animal rights group instead chose to attack a greyhound rescue, the rescue has to be very careful how they respond, lest they be perceived as being one of the "enemy" or their reputation is damaged with the general public. Besides being softer targets, I honestly couldn't tell you why. I've have plenty of run-ins with the deliciously nut-flavoured Greyhound Racing - Don't Bet on It people and their beef seems to vary from one day to the next. Sometimes it's because I won't rehome dangerous dogs (this is apparently a bad thing) other times they just make random shit up (like the most recent time where they told their followers that I took people on tours of racing kennels ). As I said to a few rescue friends about the issue.. crazy is crazy and crazy doesn't need a reason to be crazy. And this is why I won't involve myself in animal rights causes. I'm allergic to nuts and all that.

I've been lucky so far but with nuttiness increasing at a rate that suggests some kind of squirrel plot to take over the world, I'm wary of how much of my home/life potential adopters get to see. I have a fully fenced front yard and they're welcome to meet dogs there. If they want to see where the dogs live, they can look at outside areas- I draw the line at strangers coming into my house and looking at how many dog beds I have in my bedroom- and I feel this is perfectly fair. They're welcome to meet previous adopters (if those adopters consent) to discuss their experiences so I'm not going to feel obligated to have them in my house or near my family (especially if they seem like animal rights nutters, I'd prefer my family to remain unharmed and unharassed). It's sad that people can't all be trusted but I suppose the same applies everywhere else in life.

I think my biggest concern would be lack of experience dealing with rescued dogs. It's nice to warn people about potential problems of dog ownership generally but do you have the knowledge or experience to really contribute in a meaningful way? I'm not saying this to be negative but many rescue groups (especially breed-specific rescues) provide a lot of information on their own websites anyway- information that comes from years of rescue experience- and my worry is that people will receive conflicting information. As a breed-specific rescuer, I've put literally hundreds of hours into writing articles and information for my website and I'd be pretty annoyed if someone decided against adopting a greyhound because they'd read elsewhere that their house would end up coated in dog hair as soon as a dog stepped in the front door. It might seem like just a humorous observation of what dog ownership can involve to you but other people might read that as "owning a dog will turn your life into a filthy, ungodly mess of hair". I'm afraid I just really don't see the point in it. You get a lot more exposure by just sharing a dog's PetRescue profile on FB and a google search is going to bring Petrescue up on the first page for most searches. Unless you advertise very widely, no one is going to know about your site to actually look for dogs on it.

Erm.. yesss :p I had a look at the information for greyhounds and it was not very accurate. I think a better way to compare is just to actually research each breed and compare your findings. There are differences between the two so whichever one suits your lifestyle more (and that you can enjoy the company of), is probably your best bet. Having said that.. as Pers pointed out, if you want a dog that does what you want (as opposed to what it feels like doing) a sighthound might not be a good choice for type. I adore sighthounds but when you own them, you have to accept that they're a bit like cats in some regards.

I've been copping it again from the Greyhound Racing - Don't Bet On It people so I know how it feels to have to deal with those who are "reality-challenged" (to put it nicely). It's always disappointing to see ego getting in the way of helping dogs and I've noticed Facebook tends to make it much worse. One person with their own agenda (not necessarily an agenda that helps dogs) can quickly obtain a following because there's no direct debate, just the sneaky slinging of rumours. Having that following gives them power and the ability to influence other peoples' opinions. That in itself is worrying, it's even worse when the people in question are bat-sh*t crazy to start with. Malti, you have my sympathy- some people are more concerned with pushing their own barrows than actually saving dogs and it really does suck. Edit for typos

I think it depends very much on the personalities of the dogs in question. I could have several very large dogs in the house and only notice them when I have to step over one to get through a doorway but one or two dogs combined with the hellhound puppy.. and it's chaos. He has an amazing ability to turn other dogs (even the old girl) into hallway-galloping loons.

Yeah.. I get some weird stuff. Like the random dog bed website. They wanted to be able to post articles on my site. Their site was this bizarre thing promoting dog beds. Not selling dog beds, just talking about particular dog beds as if they were selling them. No links to places to buy the beds, not even Australian anyway, really weird. Had a dig through my old emails and found it.. The link now goes to an actual online store, I got curious and looked at the Whois for the domain, turns out it changed hands less than a month after I got that email Needless to say, I turned that one down. When there was no advertising on the site, no links to buy the beds, nothing that made any sense to me, it seemed much safer to just avoid that one.

Received this today.. Anyone else get this? I had a look through the listings for Launceston and they included was a petshop that is fairly notorious here for having animals literally in wire cages (just stacked on top of each other) and kept in pretty disgusting conditions :/ Not at all interested in being associated with that sort of thing.

Could also be diabetes or kidney issues.

I've had 30+ dogs desexed and never needed an Elizabethan collar. We've only ever had one or two dogs interested in licking stitches (never ripping them out, just licking) and for those girls, we put a tiny amount of Vaporub in the fur near the stitches (but not close enough to get into the wound) and that was the end of the problem in every case.

Not sure what the joke is in regards to 'Deshonko' but your last paragraph was well and correctly expressed. We are lucky that we can tell the difference between Royal C and Taste OTW. Some people are not even conscious of the contents and just blindly buy premium dog food with assumptions it's better than cheap supermarket ones. Sometimes they are the same quality! Yes, that was me. http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/226655-new-from-deshonko/page__p__5494187__hl__deshonko__fromsearch__1#entry5494187 http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/205187-time-to-order-your-christmas-puppies/page__p__4818805__hl__deshonko__fromsearch__1#entry4818805 And so on.

I don't think PF was thinking of starting a new brand? Unless it was a new Deshonko line? "Deshonka's Magical Perfect-For-Every-Single-Dog-Ever Kibble (now made with real homeopathic poo water!)" I think the point of the thread is that there is never going to be any one food that will fit all dogs so how can owners determine what their dogs do best on (using a list of good indicators). Edited to add.. Unless you mean feed a new brand of food, rather than "start" a new brand. Either way, it's the same thing. Knowing ingredients is great but you can't know how your dog will do on any given combination without trying it. To give you an example here.. in terms of ingredients, Taste of the Wild is superior to Royal Canin but for my dogs (who occasionally have to suffer kibble if I run out of fresh meat), they always seem to do better on the Royal Canin. Ingredient combination, how it's manufactured, individual tolerances of certain ingredients are all going to play a part in how well a dog does on any given food so those reviews.. useful to a very limited extent.

Is it just me or did that thread get a heavy pruning from Troy? The discussion about the odd, abusive private messages appears to be gone.

Box 1 Gold used to be the same thing but now it's actual kibble, not sure why they changed that (I'd still not use it though, it's definitely not a high quality food) Ingredients do look the same (from what I can recall, anyway- the last time I bought Box 1 Gold was about 5 years ago). The original Farrells biscuits and kibble were just wheatmeal, meat meal, tallow and salt. They were the most popular foods for greyhounds along with fresh meat and a concoction of supplements. When I worked for Western Pet Foods in the 90s we sold an enormous amount to the greyhound people. Box 1 bought out Farrells and kept the same formula for Box 1 biscuits for a number of years, then for some reason known only to them they changed it and added flavours and preservatives. That is when I stopped buying them. Most dogs had no problem with the original formula and my dogs always had a Box 1 2x2 for breakfast. Garlic is fine for dogs and is added to many dry foods. I have fed a teaspoon of granulated dried garlic to a 17kg dog for months to clear up itchy feet and it worked with no ill affects. Small amounts of cooked onion are also fine and dogs who get sick from onion have usually been fed a large quantity of left over bbq onions or similar. I have never heard of it being used as a supplement though. We used it before the change and like I said, it still wasn't a good kibble- wheat is a known allergen for dogs, "meat meal" is a worringly vague description of a meat source, rendered fat is not healthy and salt is unnecessary and added for only two reasons- to help preserve and to make it palatable. A lot of greyhound people will feed whatever is cheap- Box 1 was cheap because the ingredients were dirt cheap and not of good quality. Even most supermarket dog foods seem to be beginning to move away from wheat-based kibbles.

I finally got around to buying some Ziwipeak but I think my opinion remains the same- it's a great food (even the fussy Hellhound puppy ate some) but as a food for multiple dogs, way too expensive (we currently have four dogs, all 25kg+). What's left of the bag will be used for training treats as it's very well suited to that (smelly, soft and small pieces).

I suppose it depends on what they do with them? I know you can't legally release feral animals to the wild but.. selling them or keeping them..

I'll admit I considered that but honestly, the ad just irked me too much