melzawelza

These bills rarely get through the first time they are proposed - no one was surprised when it didn't get through. Each time the bill comes up the public gets educated on the topic - usually gets through on the third or fourth time. Only a matter of time.

I just loved this article when I read it. It's only a matter of time now for Miami, they're one of the last places in the USA to have such strict BSL. Denver will be next.

Tdierikx Council officers on the ground actually enforcing this legislation certainly weren't. The menacing thing without the breed basis is great. There will be so many less dogs cooped up in a cage or dead because the council will now have the option to go e menacing rather than dangerous following an incident. A lot of the time we are pretty much forced into a dangerous dog declaration even though it is totally overkill, because we have no other option at our disposal apart from a fine. This is actually a good thing for most dogs involved in an incident. It's the breed specific part that is so scary.

The menacing thing is fantastic, it's going to result it a lot of dogs being declared menacing rather than dangerous, which will be a better life for the dogs and their owners. I was super excited until I read this: You guys realise that they have just made it super easy to, and clearly have the intentions to, add more breeds to BSL under the menacing category? Owners of any large, powerful breed should be very afraid. They wouldn't have put that in unless they intend to use it.

I'm speaking only for NSW here - each State has different legislation. You do not need a 'Beware of Dog' sign to clear your dog if it bites a trespasser - it's already cleared in the legislation. Section 16 of the Act defines what a dog attack is but also says: (2) It is not an offence under this section if the incident occurred: (a) as a result of the dog being teased, mistreated, attacked or otherwise provoked, or (b) as a result of the person or animal trespassing on the property on which the dog was being kept, or © as a result of the dog acting in reasonable defence of a person or property, or (d) in the course of lawful hunting, or (e) in the course of the working of stock by the dog or the training of the dog in the working of stock. Keep in mind that people have a lawful right to come and knock on your front door so if you leave the dog in your front yard and it nails a girl guide coming to sell cookies or an electricity guy you are not going to be able to use that defence. Personally, I think putting a 'beware of dog' sign up is not a good idea. It's like you're admitting that your dog is something to be wary of. If something happened and someone tried to sue you I'm sure their solicitor would bring it up to try and swing it in their favour. If you want a sign warning people there's a dog without the potential for it to be used against you, I'd get a sign that says 'dog on property' or something like that.

Everybody loves Cocoa She certainly wins a hell of a lot of people over!! hehe

My girl, Cocoa. She's a rescue so I really have no way of knowing what she is, but her appearance is similar in a lot of ways to the APBT, so Pit lovers and enthusiasts tend to love her :)

My girl has never bitten a person or other dog (or ever come anywhere near), but there have been many big skinks that have met their demise in my yard She hunts them all day, obsessively!

My dog does well on it, and I have to feed her a lot less BH than I did of other brands (fast metabolism!).

Wondering if this would stand up to Judicial Review? Appears to breach several principles of Administrative Law. It is an ordinary requirement of natural justice that a person bound to act judicially base his decision 'upon material which tends logically to show the existence or non-existence of facts relevant to the issue to be determined': R v Deputy Industrial Injuries Commissioner; Ex parte Moore, (1965) 1 QB 456 at 488 (affirmed in Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Pochi [1980] FCA 85; (1980) 44 FLR 41 at 66-67). While the standard of proof required in civil cases is based on 'the balance of probabilities' given it could possibly be argued that there is a degree of 'seriousness' in these cases (would need good argument here though could argue on the basis that the outcome is irreversable i.e. euthanasia of the dog) then it is possibile that Briginshaw could apply, meaning the more serious the allegation, the higher degree of probability is required (i.e. better evidence). Dixon J held that that the standard of proof should not be satisfied by 'inexact proofs, indefinite testimony, or indirect references.' (Briginshaw V Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR 336 ). So basing a decision purely on the fact that someone has done a course and 'they say so', may not be a sufficient standard of proof under the requirements of the law, depening on how such testimony is viewed by the courts. Perhaps a challenge to the actual law, rather than its application, is what is needed. And on top of that you could discredit the course itself seeing as there are extensive studies published on the inaccuracy of visual breed ID.

My first dog was a GSD, I was very involved with the GSD Club. When I got a Rottie I lost friends. And all the associated comments about dangerous, unpredictable, etc were very disheartening to hear from people you thought were a lot more balanced in their dog views. A dog trainer I used to work with owned both Rotties and GSD but announced on every occasion she could that all Pit Bulls and AmStaffs need a bullet. I heard her call them 'f**king disgusting things' and all sorts of really vicious language on many an occasion, and she refused to train them. Always perlexed me seeing as she owned GSD and Rotties, breeds that have both been in the position the 'Pit Bull' is in in the past (with GSD actually being restricted for 40 years in this country).

It means that no longer does the Council have to prove that the dog is a Pit Bull. If the Council says it is, then it is - unless you can prove that it isn't. This will see hundreds and hundreds (more) innocent dogs killed, most of them mixed breeds without any 'pit bull' at all. ETA: Basically, the dog is guilty unless proven innocent.

So sorry Sylvie

Don't buy any pups that look like the one you posted - that is a really overdone, terribly bred puppy. Look at it's poor legs and feet Never met a Dogo, wanted to while I was in the States but didn't get the chance. Next time.

It's still not illegal. Yep. The fine is for a dog interfering with the driver - so if the dog is jumping all over the driver, sitting on their lap or the cop spots you turning around to do something with the dog then you could get a fine. You can't be fined if the dog is sitting calmly on the back seat and you aren't doing anything with it while driving.

Nope, no training whatsoever. You can't train people to recognise APBT anyway -study after study has shown that visual breed ID is unreliable when you're looking at an unknown dog. Studies have also shown that animal professionals (Rangers, dog trainers, rescuers, shelter workers, breeders etc etc) not only fail miserably at visually ID-ing dogs of unknown heritage, they also can't even agree with each other on what the dog is. The dog next door to you may have been a pure bred APBT (fairly unlikely) or it may have been a crossed APBT or simply a mixed breed dog which came out with the fairly generic appearance of an APBT. They aren't banned, they're restricted. However the dog has to be either chipped as a pure bred APBT or identified as one through the official channels before they are subject to the restrictions. Thanks for the info. At the time when I became concerned about the treatment and breed of the dog next door - Why would anyone leave a dog chained to a post for most of it's life? Should I offer to take it for daily walks? Would that be safe? - I read some information that said, for example, "It is an offence in New South Wales to sell, acquire or breed dogs on the restricted dog list." To me, a dog that's about a year old must have been acquired after the laws (or rules, or whatever) came into force and therefore there has been a breach. Maybe it's open to interpretation. I'll let the lawyers bash that one out. At the same time I found a template for identifying a Pit Bull and assumed it was used by rangers. Can't find it now. It went into details such as breadth of skull, proportions to muzzle, etc. The dog next door seemed to fit. The template was not exactly something the average person could carry around to determine if a dog is one to be wary of. And that of course leads to another question, "If I am to be wary of such-and-such a breed, how do I identify that breed?" That lack of knowledge is reasonable for the average person in the street IMO, even though it might lead to prejudice against innocent parties. (Personally, I tend to disagree with the idea of painting certain breeds with broad brush strokes. During my year in the dog park, my young GSD was harassed by all sorts, and, like other posters, I'd say to beware of any strange dog.) In any event, I now agree that the neighbours' dog was unlikely to have been a pure APBT. The head ranger, very experienced, saw the dog. The only part of the conversation that I heard was something like, "You've got 28 days..." and "If he's desexed, it costs ... blah, blah". It was none of my business, except to ensure my young and elderly dogs were safe, and to share the concern of the single mother next door with three children under 10 years of age. The template you saw might be what is used in Victoria, or QLD. There is no such template for NSW. It's really just the officer's opinion. The template is crap anyway. As Aetherglow said, Cattle dogs pass it. Even Chihuahuas pass it. Almost any dog that you apply the test to will pass it and be an APBT. The dog next door may have been one, may not. At the end of the day he was just a dog, that's all that matters. I know there is perceived risk in having a 'pit bull' next door but really the dog should be treated with the same caution as any other dog kept in similar circumstances. In the States pedigree APBT used for dogfighting are seized from huge busts - they have been specifically bred and trained for fighting and lived their lives on chains, yet most of them are absolute cuddle bugs with people and many of them can co-exist with other dogs too. The vast majority are rehomed with no problems :) Nope, no training whatsoever. You can't train people to recognise APBT anyway -study after study has shown that visual breed ID is unreliable when you're looking at an unknown dog. Studies have also shown that animal professionals (Rangers, dog trainers, rescuers, shelter workers, breeders etc etc) not only fail miserably at visually ID-ing dogs of unknown heritage, they also can't even agree with each other on what the dog is. The dog next door to you may have been a pure bred APBT (fairly unlikely) or it may have been a crossed APBT or simply a mixed breed dog which came out with the fairly generic appearance of an APBT. They aren't banned, they're restricted. However the dog has to be either chipped as a pure bred APBT or identified as one through the official channels before they are subject to the restrictions. Thanks for the info. At the time when I became concerned about the treatment and breed of the dog next door - Why would anyone leave a dog chained to a post for most of it's life? Should I offer to take it for daily walks? Would that be safe? - I read some information that said, for example, "It is an offence in New South Wales to sell, acquire or breed dogs on the restricted dog list." To me, a dog that's about a year old must have been acquired after the laws (or rules, or whatever) came into force and therefore there has been a breach. Maybe it's open to interpretation. I'll let the lawyers bash that one out. At the same time I found a template for identifying a Pit Bull and assumed it was used by rangers. Can't find it now. It went into details such as breadth of skull, proportions to muzzle, etc. The dog next door seemed to fit. The template was not exactly something the average person could carry around to determine if a dog is one to be wary of. And that of course leads to another question, "If I am to be wary of such-and-such a breed, how do I identify that breed?" That lack of knowledge is reasonable for the average person in the street IMO, even though it might lead to prejudice against innocent parties. (Personally, I tend to disagree with the idea of painting certain breeds with broad brush strokes. During my year in the dog park, my young GSD was harassed by all sorts, and, like other posters, I'd say to beware of any strange dog.) In any event, I now agree that the neighbours' dog was unlikely to have been a pure APBT. The head ranger, very experienced, saw the dog. The only part of the conversation that I heard was something like, "You've got 28 days..." and "If he's desexed, it costs ... blah, blah". It was none of my business, except to ensure my young and elderly dogs were safe, and to share the concern of the single mother next door with three children under 10 years of age. Poor dog :-( Visual identification of a dog's breed is fraught with difficulty. Rangers use a checklist of points for visual identification when a dog is formally assessed, which your ranger obviously didn't do with this dog. True in other states but not in NSW, just FYI :) There is no definition here for what is considered to be a pit bull, and how to identify one. The wording is simply if an authorised officer 'is of the opinion that' the dog is a restricted breed they can issue a notice. The dog then goes on to a breed assessment (which also does not follow any guidelines, it's just whatever the breed assessor says). This allows authorised officers discretion on how gung-ho they want to be with the BSL thing.

What a wonderful little dog Wilma is!!

Nope, no training whatsoever. You can't train people to recognise APBT anyway -study after study has shown that visual breed ID is unreliable when you're looking at an unknown dog. Studies have also shown that animal professionals (Rangers, dog trainers, rescuers, shelter workers, breeders etc etc) not only fail miserably at visually ID-ing dogs of unknown heritage, they also can't even agree with each other on what the dog is. The dog next door to you may have been a pure bred APBT (fairly unlikely) or it may have been a crossed APBT or simply a mixed breed dog which came out with the fairly generic appearance of an APBT. They aren't banned, they're restricted. However the dog has to be either chipped as a pure bred APBT or identified as one through the official channels before they are subject to the restrictions.

Behaviours within a breed fall within a bell curve. There are fewer dogs at each extreme of the behaviour and more of them falling somewhere in the middle. This isn't often a popular opinion in the show circles but as soon as you stop selecting for working ability you start to lose it. This is why so many showline working dogs are not up to the task they were originally bred for - because it isn't being selected for. This happens even more quickly when the original task you were breeding for is counter-productive in an evolutionary sense and very hard to select for (extreme gameness, fighting your own species to the death). Then when you remember that almost all 'bull breeds' in this country are mixed breed dogs with god knows what in them, you are watering down those traits even more. Does dog aggression exist at a higher level overall in pedigreed APBT, AST & SBT than other breeds? Of course. Can we generalise that 'bull breeds' (a badly defined, ever expanding group of dogs with arbitrary physical characteristics) are aggressive towards other dogs on the whole? Of course not, because of the reasons above. Most fall within the middle of the bell curve. I think this article is a good article when it comes to dog/dog tolerance, particularly in 'Pit Bull' dogs. Dog/dog Tolerance

How cute!

My guess is they are comparing the dog's DNA with swabs taken from the child's wounds. Doesn't sound to me like they are sure they've got the right dog OR that a dog was involved at all. The article I read was quite clear that the DNA rest was related to the dog's breed, however that could be the papers getting it wrong of course. Wouldn't be the first time.

It's all been said here but I'll also ask if there's a possibility that your pup may have contributed to the 'roughing up', and maybe it wasn't roughing up at all, but appropriate? Reason I ask is that a friend and I were walking our two very social bull breeds the other day when a man with a pup on lead came past and allowed his puppy to come up to ours to say hello (not a concern) but then proceeded to allow his puppy to jump all over our dogs heads, bouncing and hitting the end of the lead as he did it. Our dogs each told off the puppy very appropriately for it's rude behavior - a grumble and a slight air snap - but the owner looked horrified and like our dogs had done something terribly wrong. Nope, puppy was being a rude little tyke and got told off for it. Very appropriate. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case in your situation but I find it's often the case these days that owners expect other dogs to put up with anything and if the dog won't tolerate it and corrects their dog in an appropriate, restrained way it's automatically down to the dog being a bull breed rather than recognising their own dog's behavior in the situation.

Every article I've read (except for that one) in the aftermath of this has said that the police are currently investigating the dog's breed and doing DNA tests etc... it boggles the mind. WHO CARES?! It has NO bearing on the incident!! Investigate the history of the dog (that you can find out!) Investigate what testing the rescue did prior to rehoming Investigate how the child and dog had interacted in the two months prior Investigate the health and reproductive status of the dog Investigate the way the dog was kept Investigate what happened immediately preceding the attack There are so many RELEVANT things to look in to. It drives me insane. How will they ever figure out how to prevent this happening again if they don't ask the relevant questions?!

I'd read your QLD legislation to get a better idea - I would be very surprised if there is no defense for provocation or for trespassing (there is in NSW). You might just find that the Council have simplified it for their website (although I would argue it's important to have that information in there).

Congrats on joining the Bull Breed world :laugh: All dogs, even within a breed, are individuals. The behaviours within all dogs of a breed (and all dogs in general) will fall in a bell curve. So when you look at a herding breed you will have a small percentage that are absolutely amazing at herding, a small percentage who are completely utterly useless at it and the rest will fall somewhere in the middle. Think of it the same way with Amstaffs, APBT etc. A small percentage will be extremely dog aggressive, a small percentage will be completely tolerant of all dogs and all their behaviours in all situations, and the rest will fall somewhere in the middle. Remember also that dog aggression is not limited to particular breeds - all breeds can and will show dog aggression. Dog aggressiveness does have a large root in genetics however you can absolutely modify and improve on whatever your dog's genetics are through good puppy pre-schools and lots and lots of dog training, so that you have good verbal control of your dog. Here's a great article from BADRAP about Dog/Dog tolerance. Dog/dog tolerance Well said.