WoofnHoof

Yeah he goes through a light coffee colour stage which is probably what he was in that pic, at the moment he is a light/tan auburn colour, he has some very interesting colour changes

Did someone say hair?

I am always amazed when people who buy fluffy dogs are surprised when they shed. Granted I was surprised by the sheer amount my husky shed but not by the fact that he sheds at all, anyone whose ever had anything to do with dogs should be aware that most dogs shed hair and logic would suggest the larger and fluffier the dog the more hair to shed.

When it comes to companion animals I find it easy to have a position re PETA. They're off on a completely different direction to any of the rigorous research about dogs as companions.....& their breeding, raising & management. I have far less knowledge about animals used for various human consumptions. So I'd have an open mind on some of their campaigns. I looked at PETAs finances on their website while researching a project on mulesing and the trouble is they don't have any interest in producing better welfare outcomes, there is no research dollars directed into animal welfare itself, just a bit of research money into projects looking at replacing the use of animals in experiments. This would support their aim of eradicating any interaction between animals and humans but really does nothing to improve the welfare of animals at present (or in the future). Indirectly they have done a lot to improve welfare simply by posing a signficant threat to industries, they have forced industries themselves to have a more sensitive approach to animal welfare which in and of itself is a good thing, they have also forced consumers to make more sensitive buying decisions so much so that free range eggs for example are a profitable marketing choice. My opinion at the moment is that PETA's campaigns can have many positive side effects but their actions in and of themselves are questionable at best (and in many cases contradictory), and their direct effects on animal welfare outcomes are negligible, perhaps they have merely hastened a process by which society would have come to care for farm animal welfare by itself? Perhaps they are a natural consequence of the prevalence of factory farming and the natural aversion we have to it? There is no doubt they have played a role in farm animal welfare but whether this is a positive role it is very hard to say, while researching topics for my animal welfare courses I have found that they have engendered so much fear in animal producers that it is difficult to gain cooperation even though producers themselves are not cruel or heartless towards their animals. Watching their promo video (kindly linked by kendall in OT) it is apparent that they use the worst footage and the worst practices to encourage people to take up vegetarianism, they leave no option for the humane treatment of food production animals, and they have no solutions further than the complete disengagement of humans from the animal world. Whether this is a solution for the plight of animals I don't know, really you would just be trading the cruelty of humans for the cruelty of nature, sometimes you look at the cruelty that humans are capable of and think that perhaps animals are better off without us, perhaps the world is better off without us, does the positive outweigh the negative? I don't know but while I can see where PETA are coming from I don't agree with their philosophy or their methods, if animals are better off without us I'd rather we come to that conclusion for ourselves and not be driven there by fear or hate.

This is good it means that the idea of prosecutions (and hopefully eventually investigations) being handled by government instead of RSPCA is being given more and more attention, hopefully this will gather momentum and start to put pressure on government.

DOL has been an eye-opener for me into the world of dogs, some good, some bad but always fascinating

So glad to hear Fletch is ok, I had one of those moments a couple of years ago I was putting a few groceries in the car and Sonny jumped out while my back was turned and took off right towards the main road in 5:30p traffic! People wonder why I am paranoid but when something like that happens all you think is that your dog is going to die and it's your fault The obedience club at Toowoomba was only fenced on one side and it's right next to the highway, I think it's pretty ridiculous. The club here in Ipswich seems to be bordered by a creek at the back which would do nothing to stop my sibe he's quite partial to a swim after a run

Lol mirawee don't forget the TBs are originally crosses of arabs too :D

Apparently my email has been passed on to the relevant people in council. My dogs seem ok today hopefully they will be fine in the long term.

That's what I've done with my filly, she is 3/4 TB and 1/4 warmblood she is eligible for warmblood registration on a limited registration but unlike with dogs her progeny is eligible for the stud book if she is bred to an appropriate stallion. Primarily she is bred for eventing but should be able to do reasonably well in a number of disciplines. Crossbreeding in performance horses certainly isn't viewed in the same light as it is in the breed classes, recently the Arabs had to redefine what they would allow into the partbred registry because they were getting complaints about animals which were only 2% arab going into arab shows, my friend told me they've changed it to 12.5% apparently. Like dogs though if you cross animals with totally different morphologies and temperaments you can run into trouble, the most recent fad has been crossing Clyides with TBs which can be a recipe for trouble given the fundamental differences between the two breeds. ETA here's my animal list: Dogs 1 pure papered chi (died of twisted bowels) 1 bitsa (died of old age) 1 pure chi * 1 pure husky * *not papered though so who knows Horses 1 QH x TB (not sure of history though I strongly suspect he may have been SB) (sold) 1 andalusian x (sold) 2 pure TB 1 TB x WB

I have sent an email to the council with as much detail about the incident as I can remember (which wasn't much it was pretty quick). I don't think Sonny was stressed about being on a lead he always greets dogs the same way whether he's on lead or off. He is generally very easy going, he was very much surprised by the attack he was trying to get away and it was only when he couldn't and all three were on him that he started to snarl back at them. I just hope it doesn't affect his interactions meeting other new dogs now, it's hard to know how much it has affected him, hopefully he will bounce back ok.

I don't think I can really report it I don't know her name I was a bit shaken up myself I just wanted to get out of there and get them home Can the council really do anything if they can't identify the person? I think there is already a sign saying that dogs should be well behaved at the park, obviously some people have a strange idea of what well behaved means.

I had my dog (husky) on the lead heading towards the gate out of the park and a woman comes into the park with 3 staffies (it's a fenced offlead park) the first (an entire dog) came over and he definetly looked like he was sizing things up I kept Sonny close to me hoping to go around him then the other two came in and it was on for young and old then, poor Sonny was taken aback and once he realised he tried to get away and was snarling back at them I was frantically trying to get them off I had my little chi in my arms he jumped out and then I panicked even more thinking he was a goner. Finally the woman came in and got her dogs under control and guess what she said: "That happens when a dog is on the lead" Needless to say I wont be going back to that park, thankfully my boys coat meant that they didn't get their teeth into him but he was quite shaken he's a pretty timid fellow so I'm really not impressed, he'd already been bowled off his feet three times by another staffy whose owner responded by saying "he's just playing" except my poor boy yelped the third time he was knocked to the ground. Wasn't long after that I decided to head home my boy was actively trying to stay out of that dogs way which means it wasn't much fun for him anyway. It's a shame it's the first time I've had trouble at that park but it's not worth the risk now. Why can't people recognise that their dogs behaviour isn't acceptable? Knocking a dog to the ground isn't playing and a dog shouldn't be attacked whether it's on a lead or not.

I like this bit: Would be interesting to see what comes out of it, if anything. I'm assuming that it's more a way of enforcing existing animal welfare laws rather than overtly enforcing animal rights, I'm not sure how their justice system works though.

Interesting that you read it as two separate registries. I read it as state CC members having to pay an additional licensing fee to the gov. I think the paper means for that but that is why I would suggest an either/or option to avoid that doubling up, either that or integrate the CCs & other registries into the proposed system so that the licensing is the same across the board and the same rules apply to everyone. It can be argued that requiring CC registered breeders to join an additional licensing system is discriminatory and contrary to the aims of the paper which is supposedly not to penalise good breeders. Overall I really agree with having a licensing system for all dog breeders because at the moment the only ones following a licensing system are the purebreed and working registries and therefore they are the only ones leaving a paper trail, having a licensing system that covers ALL breeders means that there is a more level playing field. You might be right about the contract setup I suppose I see it more like how if you are selling a car privately you have to get a safety certificate and because the licensing system supposedly covers all breeders I would think it would be feasible to get a standard sort of contract that can be amended to suit, sort of like the standard EFA lease contracts you can get for horses it's a standard document that can be used by anyone who is a member and the animal must be registered with them.

Lol if I didn't have my animal friends I'd have very few friends left I liken PETA to Scientology, very cultish, make no sense whatsoever and like to take your money I reckon one of us should get a job with them and be the official DOL spy

I think that everyone who has commented here should make submissions to that effect, state why you don't want street addresses and the other things and why, but also state which sections you would be willing to support and why - I think that would be the best plan because there are a lot of areas in this that have plenty of merit and plenty of teeth when it comes to tackling puppy farms and its important to point out the parts that we do want implemented. I think there should be an option for people to either join this new licensing system or remain with their current governing bodies so long as they have acceptable and enforceable codes of practice, that way people don't have to pay mulitple licensing fees and they are still subject to standards, if they get kicked out of their CCs or other registries then they are forced to join the government one. It would be a good opportunity for the registries to come together and work towards unity and also ensure that they are a part of any process involving dog breeding, far better to be part of the machine than trying to work on it from the outside. Personally I don't think it matters if you have to make puppy buyers sign various contracts, you do that when you buy a car and once everyone knows what the gist of it is no one sits there and reads all the fine print anyway, I haven't read the fine print on contracts for years just skim over it to get the gist of it. It's just there to protect both buyer and seller, it could work well for those breeders who offer health guarentees becuase you can state clearly what your guarentee does and does not cover, bit like warranties on cars. Not only that signing a contract can make people think a bit more carefully about their decision to purchase, more so than if they were just handing over a few hundred bucks at the market. Just my thoughts at this stage

This one would be enough to put pet stores out of business, at the moment their 'health guarentee' doesn't cover congenital defects, I would have taken extreme pleasure in handing PP the $7000+ vet bills my boy accumulated in his first year of life. Whether people agree with the whole kit and kaboodle or not I would encourage people to comment and add suggestions because not doing so will not prevent it going through.

That's shocking, it's incredibly difficult to get a clean shot on a wild animal, a domestic animal will generally let you get close enough to get a clear line to it's brain but a wild animal a couple of quick well aimed shots is more than enough. We have an official wildlife person (don't know what they are called but I called the WIRES people and they sent him out) up the road when I found a roo that had been hit near my house he came out he only had a low powered rifle so it took a few shots to really be sure that the poor thing was finished off but it would have been far worse had he tried to get closer to an animal already stressed by it's situation and the close presence of humans Might be worth writing to the RSPCA and asking them to clarify and justify their position on this one...

Looking at the labradoodle websites it seems that the main thing missing is that they don't seem to have shows, there isn't much point doing up an official-looking standard if there is no way of checking dogs against that standard. The Australian white shepherds had their own shows which shows that they are serious about the future of the breed and the quality of the dogs they are breeding. Say what you want about showing but in this respect they serve a very useful purpose in setting the standard and encouraging compliance to the standard, and I think that this would be a good start if they really want to establish them as a breed.

I think that the gene for yellow in labs needs two copies to be expressed (recessive) whereas the gene for black only needs one copy to be expressed (dominant) so if the breeder knows the black has two copies of the black gene each pup will get one copy of black and will show the black. It's possible to get yellow from black and yellow but only if the black is a carrier of the yellow gene. I'm sure a lab breeder will come along and let me know if I'm wrong though

I went into telstra shop today and it turns out I still have 11 months left on my contract so that sucks Got myself all excited for nothing but I did have a play with both of those phones and they both look good I'll just have to be patient

Thanks everyone yeah I love my N95 and I'll probaby still use it as my second phone but since I'm such a technophile these days I'm in lust for a touchscreen one They both have decent reviews for the camera I like the look of the samsung but I also like some of the features of the LG, I'll see if I can get to a telstra store in the next few days and check them out in the flesh so to speak

Ok I know to proper camera people camera phones are probably a big faux pas but if I didn't have one I'd never get around to taking pictures, I currently have a nokia N95 which has a good 5MP camera but since my contract is nearly up I'm looking at upgrading to a touch phone I've narrowed it down to 2 that are available on my plan I've grabbed some specs from net reviews so I'd love any feedback of which to go for Thanks!

It's not just a cultural difference though, the raising and transport of dogs for the meat industry over there isn't just a matter of doing things differently it's cruelty, dogs crammed into cages for transport with cut tin cans over their muzzles to stop them fighting, being skinned without being killed properly first. We eat beef but at least we acknowledge animal welfare and have legislation which outlines what is acceptable and what is not, China has only just recently addressed the lack of anything even remotely resembling prevention of cruelty laws, I'm not writing them off I'm saying their animal welfare standards are extremely poor and that is not related to cultural differences. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/1...mal-welfare-law