Souff

It always makes a good headline. Whether it makes any difference for the better all rests in the hands of the usual grubs. Souff

This is the dangerous bit. It could have repercussions for registered breeders as well as pet shops. And so it should,they should all be accountable HEAR HEAR! And so say all of us! Souff has long considered launching legal action in respect of all the inherited health problems I copped. I would like to sue for squillions. Nobody checked any pedigrees or ran tests for inherited conditions in my pedigree! They just jumped between the sheets and to hell with the consequences. Being respectably married people it was all legal of course and that was all that mattered to them. They definitely should all be held accountable. On the female line there was a known history of problems .... but did they care? Oh no, they just said that you must have got that from great-aunty Liz. Gee thanks, great aunty Liz. On the male line they often tended to drop off their tree early because of faulty valves and things. Another known history of genetic defects. And still they kept on breeding! Half of them should have been neutered, I swear. And people complain about dog breeders and pet shops!!!!! They don't even come close to what humans get up to when it comes to reproduction! Yes, they should ALL be held accountable. Sue, sue, sue! Souff

agree, they are not cute and cuddly nor are they popular. Add greyhound to staffy's and staghounds you get pig dogs. Someone had already asked to use him over their deerhounds If they were trying to on sell puppies for Christmas I can't see a half grown pup being a good choice. I would like to think he might have ended up as a pet but it would have been highly unlikely. Thankfully his Mum saved him from God knows what. Yes, doh, I didn't really focus on this particular pup and similar older pups - they would be harder to offload. However it is a fact that in urban areas, young pups have been stolen from their owners homes so it is a really good idea to NOT leave pups in the backyard when you are not at home. There are thieves about and they know that an attractive pup can bring easy cash. Lowlifes. Souff

I think the police line is spot on. There are now fewer pups available for sale and there is a thriving black market apparently. A pup was stolen from a backyard by somebody who needed a bit of fast cash for another hit, and an innocent party bought the pup. Within 2 days the pup was back where he belonged, due to some alert and thinking people who sorted out a few others. Other owners of stolen pups have not been so lucky. Unfortunately, we still have people in this world who will buy a pup at the pub, or in the car park at Maccas, or at the beach. To anyone who is offered a pup for sale at the pub etc, please understand that it is probably STOLEN! Souff

Dogs are soooo wise. Most sensible dogs wont like being anywhere near the old red coated bewhiskered fat man. Santa is for CHILDREN and even then many Santas manage to scare the bejesus out of little kids. Souff

They might be litter mates but they don't have to be friends all the time. Treat the dogs as individuals and take one out by themselves sometimes and leave the other dog at home with another human. Give them some space from each other now and then. Souff has very little tolerance for situations where humans insist that two dogs must remain together always. This would not happen in a natural situation, unless the animals themselves dictated it for the purposes of co-dependency and survival, and this would be rare in terriers as they are usually very individual and self possessed characters. I agree with the idea of getting the vet to take a look too. Both terriers need to be fighting fit if you are going to leave them together when you go out. Souff

If it were 1 dog? 2 dogs? 3 dogs? You wouldn't rule out a breeder because one of their dogs had a health issue, would you? Aesthetics I'm not really concerned about - something that affects the health of the dog is more my concern. Health problems and structural defects are going to impact in a bad way at some time in the dog's life and temperament and performance will probably be adversely affected. I think you need to be more specific about the problems you are seeing. Arthritis happening in a 10 year old dog would not be a concern, but a young dog cracking up and needing medication or surgical intervention because of defects is a whole other ball game and most definitely should be avoided. If it is another condition and 1 dog in 50 bred at that kennel is unlucky enough to get it, then it has to be said that 49 other dogs missed it. There may, or may not, be a predisposition to the condition, and if it is something that can be tested for, then ask for testing to be done. Humans suffer many of the same conditions in families and have to deal with them too - but we don't have the luxury of saying "No, I wont take that baby thank you, I will take the other one." Souff

Oh. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars are spent every time there is even a small change made to legislation and when new legislation is brought in the cost is even greater. Do taxpayers get a refund when it is found that legislation, which many dog people warned would not work, is found to be not working? The only people who ever benefit out of new laws being made about dogs, or amended, is the legal profession. Nobody else. Souff

Yes, possibly newborn. Blenheim colouring I see, should blend in well .... ;) Souff

Oh how very biblical .... first son of Jacob and Leah. An excellent Jewish name for the dog of an athiest Souff

I think they called it Gough so he could say his own name - gough gough gough Is that right? In the ABC show about the Lodge and its inhabitants the JRT was called "Bill Shorten" and the butler was called Jesus ..... naughty Aunty ABC ah ... life in the Lodge without a dog would be crook. Souff

I just wanted to ask if they called it "Bill" . Does anyone know? Souff

It is worth sharing - it is a good read. I have been on the receiving end of some of the stuff mentioned, simply because I mentioned that I breed dogs. Totally gives me the sh*ts that you are treated like a pariah because you choose to spend the larger part of your life doing the best you can for the future of the animals, by people who dont give a stuff about the future of any other species except themselves. Souff

Same here. A service certificate certifies that a bitch has been served. Watch the mating, if possible, pay the fee and take the signed certificate home with you. A service certificate has nothing to do with the pick of the litter or anything else. It does not guarantee that there will be pups. It is simply a piece of paper that certifies that a mating or matings have taken place. Souff

Mandimoore, just a heads up for next time, and for others who may not know. A good vet can pick wonky patellas at the age of 6 weeks. If the breeder isn't checking for this, then as a buyer you can be asking for the patellas to be checked - before you hand over the final payment. Offer to pay for the vet check if the breeder is unwilling. If they don't accept that offer, find another breeder. Souff

Too good to be hidden behind a link. In Defense of Dog Breeders How Animal Rights Has Twisted Our Language by the late great JOHN YATES American Sporting Dog Alliance Reprinted here with permission of Donna Yates “You’re a dog breeder!!!!!!!!!!!!” In today’s world, that is a very loaded statement. It’s more like an accusation. “I told the television news reporter that I breed dogs,” a friend from Dallas told me recently. “He looked at me like I was a harlot.” Dog owners have allowed the animal rights movement to redefine our language in order to paint everything we do in the worst possible light. If we say that we breed dogs, the looks we get ask us if we own a “puppy mill” or if we are a “backyard breeder.” If we reply that we are a “hobby breeder,” someone immediately asks how we can consider living creatures a hobby. Some of us try the word “fancier.” We fool no one. The most pathetic response to the question is when we call ourselves “responsible breeders.” Responsible to whom? Who defines “responsible” and “irresponsible?” Some bureaucrat? A politician? Animal rights cretins who say there is no such thing as a responsible breeder? Animal rights fanatics would rather kill all animals than see someone love them. In fact, that’s their plan. If we say we are not breeders, it makes us “pet hoarders.” We are tarred as mentally ill people in need of psychotherapy. The entire language about dog ownership has been hijacked by the rhetoric of the animal rights movement. The worst part is that we have allowed it to happen. We are too fearful and wimpy to stand up for ourselves. We keep searching for inoffensive euphemisms to describe what we do, so that we don’t open ourselves up to attack. By doing that, however, we have engineered our own demise. The animal rights movement will not go away. Its agenda is to destroy our right to own or raise animals. Animal rights groups have declared war on all animal ownership, and they won’t stop until they either win or we finally have the courage to stand up and defeat them. They have not taken that kind of power over us. We have given it away. We have surrendered our beliefs to the enemy. We apologize for what we do. We make weak excuses for things like animal shelter euthanasia, accidental matings, dog fighting and dangerous dogs. We take at least part of the responsibility for these problems onto our own shoulders, when in truth we have no responsibility at all for creating them. None whatsoever! I am sick and tired of watching dog owners constantly apologize and grovel, and allowing themselves to be put on the defensive. Enough! It’s time to stop sniveling about who we are and what we do. Let me state clearly and for the record: I am a dog breeder. I breed dogs. I raise puppies. I like it. I’m very proud of it. If you don’t like it, you are free to take a flying leap. I don’t care what you think of me or what I do. I raise two or three litters of English setter puppies a year. I wish I could raise more puppies, but can’t figure out how to do it without driving myself into bankruptcy. My dogs work for a living, just like I do. They have to be good at their jobs, just like I do. If they aren’t good at their jobs, I don’t keep them and I certainly don’t breed them. They are hunting dogs, and they have to be able to perform to a very demanding standard of excellence to be worthy of breeding. They have to meet the exacting standard of championship-quality performance in the toughest competition. They are professional athletes. Most of them don’t make the cut. Those dogs make wonderful hunting companions or family members. I have never had a dog spayed or neutered, except for medical reasons, and I don’t intend to start now. If a dog is good enough for me to keep, it is good enough to breed. Nor have I ever sold a puppy on a spay/neuter contract. With performance dogs, it takes two or three years to know what you have. There is no way that anyone can know the full potential or worthiness of a young puppy. I hope every puppy that I sell will become a great one that is worthy of being bred. I do not feel bad (and certainly do not feel guilty) if someone decides to breed a dog from my kennel that I did not choose to keep for myself when it was a puppy. It still will be a very nice dog, and I have worked very hard on my breeding program for 35 years to assure that very high quality genetics will be passed along and concentrated in any dog that I sell. On occasion, I have a puppy that has a serious flaw. I don’t sell those puppies, even though they would make many people very happy. I give them away free to good homes, and the definition of a good home is mine because it’s my puppy. I own it. You don’t. My responsibility is to the puppy. It is not to you, and it’s not to some gelatinous glob called “society.” I consider myself to be personally responsible for every puppy I raise, from birth until the day it dies. It always has a home in my kennel, if its new owner can’t keep it or no longer wants it. That’s a contract written in blood between the puppy and me. It’s a contract written with a handshake with the puppy’s new owner. I laugh cynically when someone from the Humane Society of the United States or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ask if I am a responsible breeder. HSUS and PETA are two of the most vicious, bloodthirsty and dishonest snake pits on Earth. Their moral credibility is a negative number. PETA butchers more than 90-percent of the animals it “rescues” every year, and HSUS supports programs and policies that result in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of animals every year. By now, I assume that I have pushed all of the buttons of the animal rights crazies. I can hear them snort and see their pincurls flapping in indignation. It makes my day. Can’t you hear them, too? They are calling me an exploiter of animals. They are saying that I ruthlessly cull and manipulate the genetics of my dogs. They saying that I make the exploited poor beasts work for a living and live up to impossible standards. They will say that I do this to feed and gratify my own fat ego. They will say that I sell them for money and exploit them for personal gain. Then, of course, they will say that I use them to viciously hunt innocent wild animals. Terrible, terrible me! My mother should have a son like this! She was such a nice woman. Well, I plead guilty to all of the charges. Know what else? I don’t feel guilty, not even a little bit. I do it. I like it. I feel good about it. Now I will speak in my own defense – as a dog breeder. I happen to love dogs. I love being around them. I love working with them. I love watching a puppy grow up and discover its potential. I love having the privilege of experiencing a truly great dog in its prime. I love sharing supper with my dogs, wrestling with puppies, and sacking out with them on the couch. I lose sleep when they get sick, and work myself unmercifully to care for them. I spend almost all of the money I have on them, and some money that I don’t have. My heart breaks when they grow old and die. I have a dozen lifetimes worth of beautiful memories. What do the animal rights freaks have? They have their ideology. They look in the mirror and feel smug and self-righteous, as if God has personally anointed them to protect animals from the likes of me. What they have is nothing at all. Utter sterility. A world devoid of life and love. They can keep it. My life is filled with love and joy and beauty, and I owe most of it to my dogs. They have helped to keep me sane when sanity was not a given. They have given me courage on the days when all I wanted to do was lie down and quit. They have given me strength to endure on the days when all I wanted to do is run away and hide. I owe them my life. The animal rights folks are right. I ruthlessly cull and manipulate genetics. To make the cut, my breeding dogs have had to live up to the most exacting possible standards and pass the most strenuous tests. I am very proud of doing that. The result is that the vast majority of people who buy a puppy from me love it. When I sell a puppy, chances are that it has found a home for the rest of its life. The puppy will have a great chance of leading a wonderful life. I produce puppies that make people happy to own them and want to keep them. That’s my job as a breeder. I have done this through rigorous selection. My puppies today are the result of 35 years of my stubborn insistence about never breeding a dog that does not have a wonderful disposition, perfect conformation, great intelligence, exceptional natural ability, breathtaking style and that mysterious ingredient called genius. Every puppy born in my kennel has six or eight or 10 generations of my own dogs in its pedigree. All of those ancestors possess a high level of each of those desirable traits. I have raised, trained and grown old with every dog listed in several generations of each puppy’s pedigree. Simply put, my puppies today are a lot nicer than my puppies of 35 years ago. Today, there is a much higher percentage of good ones, a much lower percentage of deficient ones, a much higher average of good qualities, and a much higher percentage of true greatness emerging from my kennel today. That’s what it means to be a breeder. Does that feed my ego? Yep. I like having my ego stroked. Don’t you? If you don’t, you are in very deep trouble as a human being. But I’ll tell you what else it does. It makes for happier dogs. It makes for dogs that lead better lives, find permanent families and homes, and get to experience love in many forms. It also makes for healthier dogs. Generation after generation of perfect functional conformation means that the dogs are less likely to get injured, wear out or develop arthritis. Many generations of selection for vigor, toughness and good health means that they are able to laugh at the extremes of climate, weather and terrain. I also have virtually eliminated genetic health problems from my strain of dogs. For example, hip dysplasia is the most common genetic problem in English setters, afflicting a reported four-percent of the breed. In the past 20 years, I have had only two questionable hip x-rays, which both would be rated “fair” by the Orthopedic Foundation of America (OFA). The last one was 10 years ago. Yes, I am very proud of being a breeder. I did that. I am proud, too, that I am producing dogs that are so intelligent that it’s scary, so loyal that they can be your complete partner in the field while also possessing the extreme independence needed to do their job well, so loving that you want them with you every second of the day, so bold and brazen that nothing bothers them, and just plain drop-dead gorgeous to boot. They make me smile a lot. I think I make them smile, too. But, the animal rights whackos say I am doing it for the money. They accuse me of exploiting animals for profit. Yep. Every chance I get. I am very happy when I am able to sell a puppy for cold, hard cash. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel good because it shows me that someone appreciates the work I am doing. It makes me feel good because I have earned it, and earned it honestly. My only regret is that I have not made more money as a breeder. With all of the sacrifices I have made and the hard work I have done, I should be rolling in money. Alas, I am not. It has been years since I actually have made money on a litter of puppies. Usually, I lose my shirt. For every puppy I sell, there is another one that I keep to evaluate, and a couple of other ones that I am keeping for two or three years to evaluate for their worthiness to breed. Then there are dogs that are in competition, and that costs bushels of money, not to mention old dogs that are retired and have a home here until they die of old age. Almost a third of the dogs in my kennel are elderly and retired, and it takes a lot of money to care for them. It takes money for dog food, supplies, veterinary bills, kennel licenses, repairs, vehicle use for training and field trials, advertising, internet, phone bills, and four pairs of good boots a year. It takes money. Lots of money. Bundles of money. Oh, Lord, please help me to sell some more puppies! Besides, what’s wrong with making money? It is a rather fundamental American value. Making money is something to be proud of, as long as it’s done honestly. Even animal rights bozos have to eat. Someone has to make money to stuff veggies down their gullets, and organic veggies are rather pricey. Most working folks can’t afford them. I also can’t help but notice that most animal rights activists over the age of 30 drive pretty fancy cars (we are talking about the Beamer set, folks), live in rather fancy houses and dress very well indeed. I can’t help but notice that many of the leaders of animal rights groups have pretty cushy gigs, with high-end six-digit salaries, fancy offices, and all the perks. I guess they are saying that it’s ok for them to make money by the truckload, even if making money turns dog breeders into immoral greed bags. There is no one in America who exploits dogs for as much money as the paid leaders of animal rights groups. Their fat salaries depend on having animal issues to exploit. If there were no animals for them to exploit, they would have to get a real job. It’s a rather perplexing dual standard, don’t you think? Well, maybe it’s not perplexing after all. The only thing perplexing about hypocrisy is that so many people can’t see through it. My next sin is making my dogs work for a living. The animal rights people try to paint a picture of whipping dogs beyond endurance, exploiting them, creating misery and causing unhappiness. The poor, downtrodden, huddled masses. You know the tune. Only problem is, my dogs don’t agree. They love to work. They love their jobs. The only time they are sad is when it is not their turn to work. For my dogs, working is sheer joy and passion! They love every second of it. What animal rights groups live for is creating imaginary victims. Helping victims makes some people feel better about themselves and, of course, it helps them to part with their money so that animal rights leaders can live high on the hog. Oops. I mean high on the carrot. How callous of me. I guess I’m just not a sensitive kind of guy. Back to the exploited masses of bird dogs. Try an experiment sometime. Read an animal rights essay, and substitute the word “proletariat” for the word “animal.” You will find that animal rights philosophy actually is pure and straightforward Marxian doctrine. I guess my dogs are not natural Marxists. They love their jobs. They are excited about their jobs. Their jobs make them very happy. Animal rights people can’t seem to grasp that people can feel that way about their work, too. It’s how I feel about the very hard work of being a dog breeder. It makes me happy. Another way of putting it is that both my dogs and my own example provide proof that life is not pointless drudgery and exploitation. We provide living proof that joy, beauty and personal fulfillment are possible in life. I just don’t think of those qualities when I think of the animal rights fanatics I have known. They seem a rather sad and sorry lot to me. I’ll take my dogs’ company any day. Oh, but the icing on the cake is that I use these poor exploited creatures to hunt innocent birds. How terrible! Hunting, of course, is a subject of its own, and I won’t attempt to cover it here. Suffice it to say that opposition to hunting flies in the face of a few million years of human evolution, the entire balance of nature everywhere on Earth, and common sense. I know one thing for certain. The fact that we have healthy populations of most species of wild birds and animals today is only because hunters have cared enough to support strong conservation measures. We have preserved millions of acres of habitat that are vital to the survival of many species, saved more millions of acres of wilderness from development, supported the protection of endangered species everywhere, and put our money where our mouths are. Animal rights groupies do nothing but blow hot air, when they aren’t too busy destroying the land and the animals that live on it to create vast wastelands of industrialized monoculture. I am proud to be a hunter, too. It’s time for every dog owner and breeder to stand up proudly and be counted. Each one of you has done far more to enhance the quality of life of both people and dogs than all of the animal rights activists put together. So stand up and shout it to the rooftops! Stop crawling around on your bellies and apologizing. Your dogs deserve better from you. You will just have to get a little tougher if you want to live up to your dogs. What you are doing is right. It’s just that simple.

Just another example of Council Rangers being damned if they do and damned if they don't. So what would you say if she left the dogs there and did nothing and then they attacked child? Accuse her of not doing her job??? YES. i did used to work as a Council Ranger and it was my job to go into these situations. thankfully most are fine and you will not be in any huge danger. Most in fact you could catch the dog on a lead and put them in the car, as they were just scared and if you took your time with them and didn't frighten them they would come round OK. Though you get the odd one or two who you would need to use a catching pole or in RARE cases a dart gun. But there was always a risk and this time she was attacked. yes there may have been other options like getting back up etc but we don't know the situation so should not pass judgement when we don't know all the facts. A dart gun or a tazer could have been a very useful tool to use in a situation where you have 2 aggressive dogs and could have saved this ranger a whole lot of personal injury in this instance. Would cost councils and ratepayers much less than additional staff and compo premiums. These roaming aggressive dogs would be put down, so I have no qualms about a tazer or dart gun being used. Just a pity it could not be used on the owner who did not keep these dogs securely at their home. Souff

I would never say that Kelly didn't have a paw in it somewhere, but it was Ian MacDonald who was the Minister for Primary Industries and who put the bill through the Upper House of Parliament, then Premier Carr recalled Parliament for the million dollar sideshow of puppets, most of whom would not know a dog from a fog, and so it went through the Lower House, on the same day as the Stamp Duty reforms. Souff

Oi! Souff isn't about to dance naked on any tables, but dancing on a political grave sounds really good. Deals, stinking deals ... and we were sold up the river by this grub. Karma gets them in the end but there was a lot of damage done while he was in power. He was not held in high regard by many of those who knew him apparently so now it is ... "Bye bye Biggles and Sir Lunchalot!" Souff

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tiffanie-and-the-minister-macdonald-accepted-sexual-services-arranged-by-medich-inquiry-hears-20111124-1nvsb.html Gosh, if only the breeders of docked breeds had known that the Minister had a sore neck ... could have been fixed in a jiffy ;) Souff

Run free, beautiful dogs.

Well then it must be a koala ... it is writ.

Nice one! Those little green tags are like magical force fields, doncha know... Are they green in Vic? :D

Thanks for that - so it is the containing of the sheep that is the problem, not the sheep themselves. Can assure you that they weren't doing that in Oz in 1827 Cant say that it didn't happen in the long winters of Saxony though - barn living would have been the norm over there. Souff

Robbi, Saxon merinos ..... can you give me a clue why they are mentioned here? Souff