Dame Aussie

Our little Chi x used to sit like that :)

It's completely the big dogs owners fault. The reason people are suggesting avoiding dog parks is that these kind of incidents are so common in them.

Definitely. Off lead and on lead are two completely different scenarios. I'm glad Saxon is ok.

I'd laugh, but I might just cry!

Oh I hadn't thought of that. (The bolded bits were bolded by me, not HW) I haven't seen anything that suggested this, but it's quite possible

Me too. ETA: Hank is gorgeous, I love big scruffies

I didn't see that, thanks pebbles

Not a lot, but we don't have kids so it's a bit different anyway. It still wouldn't have put me off him but I understand you're point. I just think we don't know much, and shouldn't just decide this was a bad dog. We dont know if the child did something to hurt the dog etc. not making excuses of course.

I have a rescue dog who is around 50kg, he can pull on walks sometimes but that hardly means he's getting ready to tear some child's throat out.

Yes, I think that's what bothers me about this story too. No one forced this guy to go adventuring in the wilderness. In fact the locals and the Cree man who lived at the mouth of the river actually warned him against it. Still, of his own volition, the man went ahead anyway, chose not to take a satelite phone, and got himself and his dog into difficulty. I have sympathy for the civilians in Syria who, through no fault of their own, are facing starvation because of a brutal civil war. This guy went trekking for fun. It was a disaster of his own making. His dog paid the price. That irks me. My thoughts exactly.

My 20 month old (desexed) boy has a brain when it suits him, but he's still very puppyish as opposed to my girl who is 6 months older and had hardly any 'puppy' left at around 9 months! He also never marks in the house but loves every tree, pole, leaf, pram (a favourite!) or blade of grass when out. The only other icky boy thing is keeping his boy bits clean, but most dogs probably do that themselves and I just wipe him with a damp tissue every now and then. He's much cuddlier than my girl, and I know a lot of people with boys say they twmd to be cuddlier. Yep, my boy is a big boofer cuddle monster :laugh: he loves nothing more than just having any kind of contact with you, whether he be sitting on your foot, your lap, or just sitting touching you, he's happy :)

I totally agree with this. Me too

That's how I've always done it. Were thinking of a third now though! What to do?! :laugh:

My boy dog has never marked anything inside, I wouldn't discount a boy just on that. Re two girls together, I've never done it, I've known people who have with no issues and people who have had issues do I think it really depends on the dog (breed and temp).

Call it naive if you like but I can say with no reservations that I would not kill and eat my dog.

I spent two years living in a tent, camping around Australia with my then boyf, sourcing our own food and water most nights. We fished with our limited resources and climbed coconut trees. We camped near water wherever possible (which also meant buffalo and crocs in the territory). I can start a fire without matches, lighter or flint. I know how to heat rocks to keep me warm and get water from a hole in the ground or leaves and cook on the most basic of structures. Survival and safety is your top priority. To me he was unprepared for an emergency or a disaster if all it took was one lousy bear to put him at that kind of risk. How did every knife, gun, bow, arrow, fish hook, rope, etc get damaged beyond use? You can do an awful lot with just one knife. You never keep all your valuables together for a start and you always have a mini emergency kit on your own body at all times. As for keeping his food safe and out of bear grasp, that's a whole other issue. I don't care if he ate the last platypus on earth - in my eyes he wasn't prepared and his dog paid the price for that very early on in his trip and he seems like the kind of tool who will do something similar again. The world needs adventurers, but not idiots. :clap: good for you. Now you're just being incredibly rude. Yep.

Yep. Chips move quite often IME, usually down around to the front legs or chest for some reason. Where I worked we would run the scanner all over each dog a few times.

Me too. And yes many rescues and pounds have this as a clause. Its pretty rare but I've seen it happen.

The loving owner that left her with someone who couldn't even be bothered to tell her the dog was missing? How do you know the dog doesn't have a better quality of life with the new owners? Mia hadn't been off the property for 7 years. How can you hold the owner responsible for someone else's actions? It defies logic. She hasn't any control over the other person unless he was a remote conrolled robot and she held the remote!! Exactly?!?!

To be honest I get quite p*ssed off at people who have to trek in the wilderness or climb ridiculous summits unprepared to just get lost and cost tax payers thousands in rescue. If you aren't prepared and don't know what you're doing, give it a miss.

Gawd, I'd rather die.

People also need to remember that no form of ID is 100% fail safe. If this dog had been chipped but it wasn't picked up on the scanner for some reason would it be different? I think it's extremely unfair to say that just because the dog wasn't chipped it means the owners don't deserve to get it back. What about the dog? I'd say it would prefer to be with its family of seven years to a new person it doesn't even know yet.

We used to have people come in with strays they had found over an hour away. They'd pick it up and bring it to their local pound, not the area where they found the dog. Stupid, but people do it.

Yep.