tdierikx

One more sleep until I get to meet him.... T.

Loving that smile! I only met her for a few hours of 1 day, but she managed to make a little warm spot in my heart that will stay with me forever. She is a truly nice dog in every way. T.

I'd like to add that Katdogs and her husband are also some of the finest dog/pet owners I've had the privilege to meet. This pup is going to the best of homes... they also "get it" when it comes to raising great canine citizens - Stevie and Jodie are awesome and amazing dogs mainly due to the fact that they live with Katdogs and her husband. Sammy is in great hands... NO MORE SLEEPS!!!! Katdogs will be meeting her boy in the flesh today... I have one more sleep to wait before I get to meet him... but I get to play with Stevie and Jodie until then... so I can wait... *grin* T.

Greylvr, may I suggest you take a small step back and look at this whole saga from a different perspective. Pretend you are not at the centre of the storm and read the whole thread (and the other one) from the perspective of one who now has some experience with the issues that can arise... pretend this isn't happening to you, but to someone else... what would your advice have been to them at the beginning - and what would your reaction have been to that person when it all went sour? You now have the luxury of 20-20 hindsight to draw upon... I would suggest that if you can't see the issues that were possibly going to happen from the start, that maybe you haven't learned some very valuable lessons about dog rescue in Australia, and maybe need to completely rethink all of your strategies from scratch. Simply moving to somewhere different won't resolve some of the fundamental mistakes that have been made during your foray into Greyhound rescue. Trying to deflect attention away from your own "failures" by bringing up other people's mistakes is not indicative of someone who has learned a valuable lesson about their own practices. I can pretty much bet that every single person who has give you advice in this thread has made their own mistakes at some point in their careers in rescue... the difference being that they HAVE learned some very valuable lessons from those mistakes, and have put procedures and processes into place to make sure those mistakes NEVER happen again. Your posts after the fact suggest that maybe you HAVEN'T learned all that much from yours. T.

I'm going to be very restrained and will wait patiently until Katdogs calls me to tell me it's time for my Sammy cuddles... T.

Vets are like our dogs - we get out what we put in... you just have to train them is all... T.

Hmmm... I began in rescue by fostering a dog for a large rescue group, then I did a couple of private rescue/rehomes myself, and have since found a rescue that I "click" with and have fostered literally hundreds pups for them over the past 5 years. Along the way, I have met many great people from many other rescues, made wonderful friends and contacts in various pounds, etc... and while we don't always see eye to eye on various topics, we seem to manage to work with and help out each other along the way. I have also had the privilege of learning exactly what it takes to run an ethical rescue in this day and age - and I know that it's a challenge that I really don't think I'm ready for at this stage of my life. It's not that I couldn't manage to run my own rescue ethically and well, but more of a case of I know what sort of commitment it is to get it right day after day... and that scares the bejeesus out of me. I know you've had a rough time of your foray into rescue in Australia, and it may seem that many people are being very harsh in their summations of your efforts to date - but honestly, everyone here REALLY wants everyone involved to get it RIGHT for this particular breed. As noted, Greyhounds still have many stigmas attached in the minds of the public, and any cock-ups reflect badly on ALL Greyhound rescue, not just the one making the mistake. T.

I have a second 3-seater couch especially for the dogs - one problem solved... *grin* And my pup has chewed a hole in the cover sheet on my bed, and she keeps getting caught up in it when she goes back for more chewing... the joys of teething puppies! As for the licking of the yoghurt tub - my problem is remembering which dog had it the night before... they take turns each evening to lick the tub dregs... T.

I have a dog with mobility issues, I use a harness when walking her so that if she stumbles I can help her stay upright. If you need extra "steering", then you could put a collar and a second lead on your girl. T.

I likes!! T.

Sunday afternoon is going to be time... T.

Pretty much any IP anonymiser will do... just google "IP anonymiser" and you'll have plenty of easy to install options... then you can troll us all to your heart's content (if you so wish)... *grin* T.

Ummmm... well... he IS Katdogs' new puppy... ... but I is just getting so excited about meeting a REALLY well bred puppy... ... and I get to play with Stevie and Jodie while Katdogs goes to pick up Sammy. T.

You'd think that seeing dead cats on the side of the roads regularly would convince some people that their cat would be safer if it were contained... but no... T.

The problem with some cat owners is that they actually believe that their cat should be allowed to wander wherever it wants without consequence. God help the owner of a dog that kills a cat that has been allowed to wander - the cat owner can get quite nasty about it. T.

I'm sorry that your first foray into rescue here in Australia has been a rocky one... it is definitely a very steep learning curve, isn't it? T.

3 more sleeps until he's home! Are we getting excited yet or what? T.

I'm sure pound and shelter workers (or vets and vet nurses) never thought as they were growing up "I want to have a job where I get to hold perfectly healthy and rehomable pets as they are euthanaised"... I've yet to meet one pound or shelter worker who thinks that part of the job is acceptable. Even in the pounds and shelters where they have many options in place (read working with rescue, foster carer programs, etc), perfectly rehomable animals are euthanaised - albeit on a smaller scale than the places without those extra options in place. Then there is the fact that some animals really can't or shouldn't be rehomed... in some cases it's actually kinder to euthanaise. T.

My eyes are leaking... Beautiful! T.

I think the reply was aimed at the "shelter manager" who wrote the original piece. The answer advised what management types can try to do instead of following the same old methods of reducing the numbers of animals in their care. The system can really only change from within - when people who work in that environment say "enough" and look into other ways of lightening their load (so to speak). There were some very good suggestions for certain types of action that really wouldn't cost them anything, and will get animals leaving rather than dying and having to be disposed of. Sure - the "blame" lies with owners who surrender or don't come to get their dogs... but there are other ways to deal with the situation of animals in pounds and shelters that have proven to be very effective when put into place. T.

It will be interesting to fid out whether she hits you up for the vet bill... especially if the cat needs expensive treatment... T.

The tests for small dogs are based on the greyhound's prey drive, not its defence drive. When a dog is acting aggressively through defence it will normally give the intruder an opportunity to retreat. When a dog is acting aggressively through prey drive there is no opportunity to retreat given to the intruder. I can't comment on what happened with this particular dog, but I agree that dogs that show prey drive towards other dogs are not suitable to be offered to the public as pets. All greyhounds need to be carefully tested for prey drive towards small dogs. If they fail, they are a liability, legally and socially, for the owner and for the group that sold it as a pet. Well met Greytmate... and that's why I leave the rescue of sighthounds to those who know what they are doing. I tend to stick with breed mixes that I understand better... T.

All of my dogs and my foster pups get taught "leave it" - often even before they learn "sit"... one of the most useful commands I reckon. T.

The most important thing to remember is that even though your beloved best mate is gone in the physical sense, they will truly live forever in your heart. Remember them well... T.

I'm not completely against BYB in and of itself - mainly because I feel that there IS room for mixed breed dogs in society... However - I'm not a fan of handing off a pup to the first person that comes along with the right amount of money. There are some BYB's out there who are a little more fussy about where their pups end up... and I think that we should be encouraging the people who breed one-off litters to make the effort to rehome them responsibly rather than throwing all that over-emotive shite at them. Abuse and denigration doesn't usually make converts to the cause if you will. T.