tdierikx

Ahhh, but there's the thing... nobody is held accountable for their own actions any more - it's always someone else's fault. I never thought I'd live in a society that had to put tags on clothes saying "do not iron whilst wearing"... but here we are... *sigh* T.

I'd happily enter a yard with Staffy types... they give the best kisses! Assuming that the owner knows I'm coming and that the dogs aren't obviously telling me that going in is a bad idea... T.

Is it possible that your dog may be one of the few who have side effects caused by Sentinal Spectrum? With our rescue pups, we will dose once prophylactically with Baycox, and give Canex or Fenpral worming tablets (or Canex puppy syrup if the pups are under 2kg) about 24-48 hours after giving the Baycox dose. If there are fleas present, we will use Revolution spot on for the pups' weight range. T.

Yep - think small dog bites small child = significant wounding requiring medical care from a professional. Just because it's a Chi or elderly, doesn't give it or the owner the right to behave that way. It's NOT funny. T.

Well thought out and presented moosmum... thank you! T.

Actually you need to make sure your dog is in compliance with the management requirements of a particular area first and foremost and be in a position where anyone would reasonably believe an incident shouldn't arise in other words, a leashed dog walked on the street is not responsible for the result of attack from a dog at large escaping someone's property regardless of the dog's size as the dog at large has breached the management requirements to begin with, that is had the owner of the escaping dog complied with the management requirements the incident would have been avoided.......the dog on leash is not the menacing dog regardless of the outcome. This has been tested at law a few times where large dogs on leash have injured small dogs off leash in a public place who have mounted attacks on the large dog or it's handler. One case where a small dog was PTS from result of injury inflicted by the large dog was appealed twice and on each occasion the large dog owner escaped prosecution. But in many cases, the larger dog's owner hasn't had the funds to mount such an appeal - and thusly their dog has inevitably been euthanaised fro reacting in kind to an attack by a smaller dog. Being a large dog owner (2 of which are bullbreed crosses) I am distictly aware that if my dogs WERE to retaliate when attacked, they would be the target of some serious action - regardless of any facts showing that my dogs were not the initial aggressor. Therefore, it is MY job to make sure that they AREN'T prone to reacting in kind when set upon by another dog - but look to ME to get them out of that sort of predicament. It's all part of ownership of a larger dog really... having some responsibility for the fact that if they were to bite something, it would have a much greater impact than if a smaller dog bit something, yes? Personally, I don't think ANY dog, regardless of size, should be "allowed" to be nasty in public... but the "rules" seem to be applied more along the lines of how much damage the individual dog can do, as opposed to the fact that they ALL can cause some form of damage with their teeth. I'd rather not be bitten by ANY dog, thank you very much. T.

It's not illegal to sell/rehome an entire dog - whether it be rescue or otherwise. Unethical if you are doing it under the banner of rescue - but not illegal... *sigh* T.

We tend to use Baycox as a one dose treatment in our rescue - usually works for us after the first dose. We dose at 0.2ml per kilo of the dog's weight. In extreme cases we will follow up with a second single dose a week after the first. Have you dosed your pup for other intestinal worms lately? We use Canex or Fenpral on our pups as they are easier on the gut than Drontal... Drontal is harder on the gut and we've seen quite a few pups with a week of diarrhoea after using Drontal... Has your vet looked for Giardia as well in the fecal float? We've seen Coccidia AND Giardia both present in some of our rescues. Symptoms of both are very similar, but require different drugs to eradicate. T.

Shabani(?) had gone over to Lubutu and started a display... Lubutu sat and watched him for a good minute or so, then got up and indicated that he'd had enough... the look on Shabani's face says it all, doesn't it? "Oh crap, now I've asked for it!"... lol! Lubutu just stood up tall and eyeballed Shabani and rushed at him, and it was all over just like that. No push or shove, no screeching - just Lubutu quietly enforcing his superiority. I'm pretty sure the snakes were doing the horizontal mamba (for want of a better term... *grin*) - it was awesome to watch... like a deadly dance going on. Some bloke reckoned they were fighting, but the absence of any biting seems to nullify that idea... looked very much like the snakes I've seen mating on the farm as a kid. T.

If truth is now deemed "muck raking" - dog help us all... The truth of the matter is that Rocky's K9 Rescue is milking Ben's "story" for everything they can get... and the "truth" really isn't getting in the way of that. Yes - the pound did not ante up for expensive surgery for Ben while he was in their care - but they definitely did NOT leave him untreated at all. They did what was in their power to do for him under the law as it currently stands. DD - you know for a fact that Ben did not have any bedding supplied by the pound during his stay? Have you confirmed that he did NOT receive any pain relief? T.

Yes i agree, but as stated page one or two my opinion on why that isn't happening, And some of the current laws fail on large scales even with enforcement after all they allow farming. And I agree with 24 hour contact to council ranger, not 2 days a go I had a beautiful looking mastiff in my horse paddock playing with my dogs who were in their pen. this was at 11pm, I have a girl locked on the enclosed veranda and locked in her crate who is in season, which is why is was probably visiting. I told him to pi** off and he growled at me and ran away, I was within my house yard and knowingly safe, and I interpret his growl as 'leave me alone don't chase me'. But the point was he was not where he should be at the wrong time of day. And why should the public risk approaching a strange dog, the boy in my yard wasn't aggressive but if he didn't leave and acting on his sensors due to girl in season and I cornered him and put a rope on him and tried to shove him in my car to keep my girl safe, what would he have done? But if you ring some councils during office hours with a strange dog on the property they say' try and catch it'. which would mean close proximity cause most normal people don't have a lunge bar or whatever they are called they are unable to come out until later this afternoon or until tomorrow cause our range is not on duty today. The government failure just keeps on going. Can you please answer the bolded part of my question? Your response regarding "farming" still being legal is not exactly an answer there... As for approaching strange dogs wandering the streets or in our yards - I've had my share of those that I've had to deal with because they always seem to be about when a ranger ISN"T available to come and deal with them. Then again, I'm not your average Joe Public when it comes to dealing with dogs either - I've got a few courses on handling dangerous dogs under my belt, and have been in rescue for a few years where one of my jobs is selection of dogs from the pounds we deal with - I have to be able to understand dog body language under stressful conditions in order to work out which pound dogs are going to be rehomable or not. Add that to the fact that the rescue I work with deals with a lot of sick or injured dogs who may be under even more stress than normal, and with a much higher propensity to bite because of same - I've yet to be bitten by any dog (roaming or rescue). The fact remains that we DO have plenty of laws regarding dogs, that if enforced without fear or favour, would definitely have an impact upon some of the issues we are discussing in these threads... but we need the proper numbers of those tasked with enforcement of said laws increased to a level where they CAN do it effectively. T.

Angeluca - I understand that you are putting forward a potential/hypothetical "solution" to a "problem" as you see it... but can you eleborate on WHO is going to enforce your solution, and HOW they are going to be able to do it effectively? Given that the already myriad laws and regulations we have now are not being effectively policed or enforced... My solution is simple - put people on the ground in those positions tasked with policing the CURRENT laws, and you may actually see a decline in the numbers of people pumping out litters willy nilly for a "quick buck". Just imagine council rangers surfing all those buy and sell websites, then dropping in on the sellers to check the vaccination and microchip status of all the animals on the premises... with lovely fines for each animal that isn't chipped or registered... I'd like to also see council rangers effectively being on call outside of business hours and on weekends - on a rotating roster of course. Animals don't confine themselves to being lost or in need of help during business hours after all... and why should the general public have to pick up the slack there to get an animal to the nearest pound or shelter? T.

OK - photos from yesterday are up... http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdierikx/ Here's a taste... Not the best pics I've ever taken, but some interesting subjects, don't you think? T.

Well done Sid! You done your mum proud little man! T.

Has it really been 4 years since Norma passed? Dog, time flies! Vale Norma - we still miss you heaps... T.

I would guess that Ben's story has been somewhat embellished by the rescue who now has him... the pound in question would have had him on pain relief... T.

But it's so much easier to just make up new laws... never mind that they can't or won't be enforced... the pollies can say that they are "doing something" about the "problem"... ... only issue there is that no-one can truly agree as to what the "problem" is... *sigh* One sided media reporting is not helping. Every dog attack reported must be a "pitbull" or some sort of cross thereof... or it just doesn't get widespread media attention. Someone has an agenda here... if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a pitbull... *sigh* People love statistics... but when reporting statistics, there needs to be some qualifying data to sustain the findings. For example - the number of SBT/cross dogs responsible for attacks requiring medical attention only states a number of bites presented to the medical profession to fix... what it doesn't show is the number of that breed cross actually out there in society - which would more than likely show that as a percentage of that number, the actual bite stats for that breed mix may actually be quite small. I am not suggesting that any dog that shows unprovoked aggression needs any excuses made for it - completely the opposite in fact... there is no place for ANY dog that shows unprovoked aggression in our society... but I'd be pretty silly to equate media reporting of "the problem" to actual fact. I personally don't give a rat's about what breed or mix an aggressive dog is - large or small, pure or mixed - those INDIVIDUAL dogs should be removed from the gene pool. T.

The problem is that the impounded animal cannot have expensive surgery until some form of ownership is established - even under a DOC agreement, the dog would not be able to have surgery until it was either reclaimed by the owner, or formally released to rescue. What happens if the dog is reclaimed after the surgery is performed? Who foots that bill if it hasn't been authorised by the actual owner of the dog? How do they recoup the surgery cost? If the injury is not life threatening, and can be managed with pain meds and generally making the dog comfortable - then that is all the pound can do legally. The animal truly is in limbo until it is formally owned by someone. Here's hoping that the rescue now involved has actually sent Ben off for his surgery already, and isn't waiting for some fundraising venture before doing so... T.

She's going to be a shocker! But a deadly cute little shocker, yes? How cute are they now? And in stunning health too. T.

I outdid myself today... over 2000 photos taken... well made up for not photos yesterday... lol! Have deleted 700 crap ones and am ready to sort them out and pick the really nice ones to share - but am completely knackered, need a shower, and a feed. Then I'm probably going to crash on the couch... So I'll sort them out and post up the nicest ones tomorrow evening, OK? T.

The genetics need to be there for training and environment to bring it out.......do you know how many GSD's fail attack training prerequisites in police and military programs?........about 30% of the breed are trainable and the other 70% lack the genetic structure for the job.......you can't make a courageous, attack dog out of a chicken shit like you can't make any dog chase old ladies and nail them no matter how much you chain them up and poke them with sticks, if they don't have the genetic defence drive or elevated aggression to challenge, they won't be chasing people down the street to maul them regardless of the training and environmental factors. What's the point of the crossbreed anyway when they are modelled off a pure breed but how do you reproduce a great crossbreed dog......it's hard enough for dedicated pure breed breeders to do that with an ancestry of previous dogs on tap.......most crossbreeds are the results of whoops litters and idiots doing random BYB's where the produce fills the rescues and pounds anyway......there needs to be control in dog breeding IMHO, what we have now is a free for all for people skilled in the knowledge that male + Female = puppies. I guess speaking with a friend last night who's just imported semen from the USA at great cost and messing around in hope to improve a trait doesn't leave me overly excited at thinking a BYB cross breeder is the league to be breeding dogs sorry!! There is a place and room enough in our society for all types of dogs - pure OR crossed... even if YOU might not think so... T.

Did anyone ever doubt they'd take to their tucker? Have a look at how big and fat they are already... they love their tucker... lol! T.

Harper is fine now... I just had to put all my Saturday plans on hold in order to make sure that the antihisimines kicked in and stopped her swelling up more. Cheeky bloody puppy didn't seem too bothered by the whole thing either. It took a long time for the swelling to go down. She was stung sometime around 8am, had the shots at 9:30am (as soon as the vet opened), and it was past 4pm before the swelling had gone down enough around her face for her to get her head into her dinner bowl. The hives cleared up pretty quickly though - only a couple of hours after the shots before her skin lumps were gone. I'll be going to Taronga today as planned... assuming the naughty horse puppy doesn't find herself another bee... *grin* I mowed the lawn to reduce it's appeal to bees... T.

From the look of the bandage holding Ben's leg and hip stable, he's been seen by someone with veterinary experience and they may have deemed that he was stable enough being bandaged up like that. Not that I agree that a dog that requires orthopedic surgery should be kept in a cold kennel environment for the full impound time - the logistics of performing immediate and expensive surgery on a dog that may or may not end up being reclaimed by the owner are tricky. Then there's the possibility that he wouldn't be adopted or rescued. The pounds just don't have the resources to cope with this sort of thing properly. If he had been euthed, and then his owners came forward to find him, then there would be a huge outcry also. The pound is between a rock and a hard place when animals come in like this... and I'm sure that not one staff member at that particular pound likes to see dogs suffering needlessly. Let's cut them a little slack, OK? T.

While there are not enough people on the ground to enforce the CURRENT laws and regulations, I cannot see any way that any further laws or regulations could possibly be enforced either. Not everyone wants a dog from purebred lines - and just because one gets a dog from a breeder registered with the CC in their state, doesn't always mean they are getting a "quality product". I could go out today and impulse buy a registered pedigreed dog/pup (let's say a Rotti, a GSD, or an SBT with main reg papers) without any questioning at all about how I am intending to raise/keep that dog/pup - just hand over my money, take home dog/pup. It really IS that simple. I could also go out and buy myself a crossbreed dog from a pet shop or BYB, and take it home, rear it properly and have myself a perfectly fine canine citizen. Not all crossbreeds are destined to have health or temperament issues. There is a lot to be said about screening potential puppy/dog buyers - but let's face it - it ain't always going to happen. That's where education of the public to actually think about what they want in a pet BEFORE they go out and get one comes in... T.