Tarangire

Hi RW. Your post is interesting. I mentioned my thesis before, and my research looks at why some introduced (aka ferral) species are fine to have around and why others are demonised, irrespective of the environmental impact that each species has. For example, while there is indisputable evidence to show that cane toads have had a negative impact on their local biological webs and are thus consider (rightly) as a pest species; other introduced species, who may have similar environmental impacts are not so despised. Why? A good example of this are brumbies (wild horses) - they are part of Australia's historic folklore and culture, and loved by many. Yet environmentally, their impact on the alpine heathlands in NSW and VIC has been devastating. Or the continued introductions of trout to Tasmanian rivers - by the parks and wildlife dept-(where they are the fish equivalent of lions in the savvanah,and have wiped out native fish and vertabrate populations. How about the ubiquitous gecko in north QLD? These guys are actually asian house geckos, and are quitely forcing out the native geckos to the point where people now think the asian version is the native. Or the lovely goldfinch bird? Beautiful song, lovely to look at, and yes, taking up valuable nesting opportunities, forcing out the locals and eating native insects. My point is that we tend to emotionalise those species we have the most contact with - and in the case of canetoads, its ok to dettol them, or shoot them with air rifles (something I know that a non-DOLer advocates) or practice golf swings with, because they are 'bad'. But no-one who loves animals would do that to a horse, would they? Dispose of cane toads humanely, and please make sure that they aren't toads (like the the painted borrowing frog, or the native toadlet). I know its easy to despise them, because they are 'ugly' and venoumous, but not animal deserves to die in agony. And yes, put up netting and seal the areas they may get into. They are a fact of life now, and its better to just put in place proceedures to deal with them. Hope this helps some people. I grew up with cane toads in Central and North Queenland and always had a dog. Never did we pay a thought to our dogs being affected by cane toads. All of our dogs would mess with toads regularly, one gorgeous Australian Terrier we owned would spend half his days chewing on cane toads and we never witnessed any side effects and he lived well into his late teens. I have lived in Brisbane for the past 5 years and have barely seen a cane toad untill the past week or so when I have seen several getting around my yard at night. I was a little bemused with my wifes paranoia about the chance of our 9 month old Stafford being affected by toads given my own personal experience. I mean I have certainly heard about dogs getting sick and even dying after mouthing or ingesting toads but I wasn't about to make a fuss when my puppy wants to be let outside for a toilet break after dark. I have also heard stories of hippies near Cairns using the venom from cane toads for its hallucinogenic properties and while this may well have been what attracted my dogs to regularly chew them in the past they were all well behaved, long lived, healthy dogs and never exactly acted like they were tripping out. I just thought I would check on here what peoples thoughts on and experience with cane toads has been. Interestingly none of our dogs ever seemed to harm green frogs. Again the little terrier would sometimes give them a hard time but he seemed scared off by the loud swauk they would let out when he would pick them up or get too close and as far as I know he never actually seriously injured one. The little aussie terrier was a real little hunter though and often killed lizards, snakes, rodents and insects. He also often chased ducks and ibises and could enjoy himself for hours terrorising an elephant beatle. lol. For some time we lived on a few acres with a dam during which time we would routinely hunt toads with a golf club. At certain times between my brother, father and I we would kill a couple of hundred toads per night without venturing far from the house. It would only take several minutes to do with there being a toad at least every two square metres. Most of the ones we would kill wouldn't have been much bigger than a mans fist. When I was even younger my dad would sometimes sit on the balcony and shoot big cane toads with a high powered multi-pump pneumatic air riffle. Some of these toads where the size of a standard dinner plate or an almost fully inflated regulation size basketball. You wouldn't have been able to play golf with these ones, not humanely and not without bending your shafts anyway. lol. Cane toads are such tough creatures, many times I have seen smaller ones with all their guts hanging out their mouths and a mangled leg still trying to hop away after having been smashed 30m with a 5-iron (still probably a kinder death than being sprayed with detol). And there was no room in our 400L freezer for cane toads because it was always kept full of duck, rabbit, pork and venison from weekend hunting trips. haha. I can't say I have ever considered eating a cane toad but I have no trouble killing them. They are hideous creatures and a pest in this country. Rats much the same although rats are far more intelligent than toads yet it still doesn't stop most people from serving them up a horrible death from baits containing strychnine or warfarin.

I have a 6 month old deep red Stafford puppy named Marty. Staffords really are the most affectionate dogs ever. They absolutely love their cuddles and human contact. You could even say they are emotionally needy I guess. lol. The last dog I owned was an Australian Terrier and while he was a great dog too and loved us very much he was also much more independent. While he loved a play and a pat he would always rather be outside scratching around, exploring, hunting lizzards and chasing ducks than sitting on the couch watching tv with us. With Marty though he always wants to be with us. When we come home or get up in the morning he will want to come straight inside and will sit at the back door and make dolphin noises (series of short clicks and longer high pitched whining noises) though I have tried to discourage this and tend to ignore him for a bit and now once he knows that I'm aware he is there he will lie at the door and wait quietly. As for barking, well he barks so infrequently that I actually like it when he does. Usually it is just a single bark and almost everytime I have heard him bark it has been at birds, either a noisy crow or a bunch of lorikeets. Most days even when I am home all day I wouldn't hear him bark at all and there has only been 3 or 4 occasions when I have heard him let out a series of half a dozen barks but all bar one of these times I was playing with him on the lawn and trying to get him worked up. A few times I have heard him half bark while in deep sleep on the couch and he definitely snores and farts. Sometimes he also makes another funny little noise with his mouth while he sleeps. He will also moan softly when I give him a gentle rub behind the ears. Though he does love to spend as much time as possible with us I don't think he suffers from seperation anxiety at all when he is left alone all day and he seems to entertain himself just fine. I have come home several times and snuck in without him realising and been able to watch him playing out the back, throwing an empty plastic pot plant holder up in the air and jumping around or throwing about or just chewing on an empty coke bottle (which are his favorite chew toys). Even when we are home sometimes he likes to go outside to sunbake and he will be happy outside for over an hour on his own while we are home if you give him a big lamb shank. The only destructive thing he has really done is uprooting a couple of little shallow rooted trees and tearing a couple of frongs off a stout palm tree. One interesting fact is that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is one of only 2 breeds that the UK Kennel club strongly recommend for children. They say a small child can pull a SBT's tail, ears and poke him in the eyes and the only thing he is likely to do is pick himself up and move away. Well my sisters baby has done all of the aforementioned to Marty and that is exactly what he did. He really really loves it though when he has older kids (7- 10) to play with. A lot of people do perceive Staffords as being agressive but that couldn't be further from the truth. They might look tough but they are just big babies. Chiwawas, daschunds and the majority of smaller breeds really have a far higher tendency to be agressive than Staffords but because they don't have the same capacity to do damage no one gives them a hard time. I mean that arrogant snarly Daschund can snap at the Staffy 30 times and no one thinks its a drama but the one time the Staffy decides its time to teach the Daschund a lesson then the Staffy is a vicous dog. Just like the runt who picks on the fat kid and then the one day when the fat kid lashes out and the runt loses a few buttons off his shirt the teacher sides with the runt because he's 10cm shorter and 30kg lighter. lol. Some Staffords I have known in the past have just been too full-on but I couldn't be happier with Marty. When you want to play he has boundless energy and when he hasn't seen you for a little while he will be excited to see you but he is generally very cool calm and collected when compaired to a few other Staffords that I have known. He is also rather obedient and I haven't really put very much time at all into training him. Once we looked after someone else's Stafford and as soon as you opened the sliding security door one inch he would barge through knocking the door off its track. So we made sure that Marty would wait to be invited in and he does this all the time now even if I don't instruct him to wait. He will also wait for the ok to eat his meals and heels nicely on the leed. Sorry about my rambling. It got a little lengthy. lol. Just watching the tennis.

Supercoat is not a premium food. It is a cheap food full of fillers. NJStaffy - a SBT breeder here has given her opinion on your dog and as an owner of a giant breed - the feet on your dog are a dead give-away. Someone else has also commented on the coat colour. Supercoat is still better than most of the crap you can buy at Woolies or Big W and must at least be on par with Science Diet which at twice the price of Supercoat is generally considered a premium dog food despite its poor ingredients. A lot of people waste good money on Science Diet which is full of corn, by-products, fillers, artifical flavour and with much of its protein coming from soy rather than actual meat.

What do you hope to achieve by having a DNA test? There is no way NJ is a purebred Staffordshire Bull Terrier. At just 6 months of age he is already big for this breed. I would just wait and see how he develops over the next few months. Post some more pics on here then. Ask the vet what he thinks. Either way he is a good looking dog and I would imagine you must be pretty attached to him by now. And I don't think the breeder will conceed anything to you whether you have DNA results or not. Would it be that bad if he ended up 23" tall and 40kg? The food bill will be a little higher. Do you have a decent yard? Obedience will be even more important. There is no breed better with children than Staffords and even if he was a quarter or half bull mastiff, well they aren't bad with children either. Mastiffs aren't as welcoming of strangers as Staffords are though that could be a plus. lol. How does NJ behave? Is he sooky and cuddly like a Stafford?

Hi all! Have just joined up.. So my first post. NJ looks exactly like an American Staffy that was going to puppy school with my Staffordshire Bull Terrier. I am not sure if his owners had pedigree papers or not though so that doesn't really help any. There was also a couple at puppy school who had a bitch they claimed was a 16 week old pure English Stafford but obviously wasn't. While it did resemble a Staffy it was almost the size of a full- grown Staffy bitch and it looked like it had all adult teeth. I suspect that they were not only sold a Staffy X but they were also duped into believing the puppy they were buying was 12 weeks old when she was truely at least 6 months old. Given that when I quizzed them they said they had bought her at the local markets I wouldn't be suprised if the person selling her didn't even know the true age or identity of the dog. lol. My puppy Marty is a purebred Staffordshire Bull Terrier with papers and both his parents while still being champion show dogs (his father an Australian Champion) where definitely on the large side for the breed. Marty is about a week off being 6 months old and weighs 13.5kg. I am not sure how tall he is. So yeah if NJ is 19" and 23kg at 6 months of age he is definitely not a purebred Stafford. At that size he couldn't even be a purebred American Staffy. Unless he is an American Pit Bull Terrier but he looks more like people are saying an American Staffy / Bull Mastiff. As for kibble Supercoat is still a premium food but it is right at the bottom of the heap along with Science Diet and Eukanuba. If your dogs are doing well on it then this really isn't an issue. I feed Eagle Pack Holistic Select Chicken and Rice which is one of the best foods you can buy in Australia but when I was a child all of my dogs lived on table scraps and cheap supermarket brand canned food yet they all lived happy, healthy lives well into old age.