Curlybert

Possibly not, Lab Rat - he may not have said it on that program! Sorry. But I have just checked and the good news is there WILL be a fifth series. The bad news is that it won't be filmed until 2011. Let's hope the ABC doesn't faff around and that it screens here shortly afterwards!

The contrast between his Men Behaving Badly character and his Doc Martin persona is incredible. I guess this makes him a pretty good actor! Doc Martin viewers might remember that he hated dogs and that all the neighbourhood dogs seemed to take a shine to him - he was always yelling at them and shooing them away with his feet. In real life he has a number of dogs and just loves them. I saw him on the Graham Norton show on ABC2 a couple of months ago and he said that anyone who doesn't love dogs has somethingseriously wrong with them. (I concur!) He also said that a fifth series of Doc Martin is in the plannng stages! Woo hoo!

Not cynical - just cautious, SSM. I'm the same. I recall an older cousin's marriage carked it after nearly 20 years (husband traded her in for a younger model). My cousin had been old-fashioned enough to let her tosser husband manage all the household finances and she hadn't worked outside the home since the children were born. She scored the house as well as its big, fat mortgage and found herself looking for a job at the age of 53 when other women of that age would be thinking about retirement in a few years. Fortunately she was a trained teacher, so with some skills updating got a job fairly quickly, but there is no way she can retire before she is 65, despite ongoing ill health. Meanwhile, her ex-husband is unencumbered and living a carefree life with the Whore of Babylon (as we affectionately refer to 'the other woman'!). Moral of story: Maintain some financial independence!

I see that you've already had lots of good advice but here's my contribution! My dogs suddenly developed a bad flea problem some years ago and all my efforts to eliminate it were futile until I flea-bombed under the house. Problem solved instantly and it has never recurred.

I have just consulted my dictionary. A 'berk', 'birk' or 'burke' is defined as a fool. Don Burke is therefore a prime example of nominative determinism (ie the name is appropriate for the person). Apologies to any DOLers who share this surname - I'm sure you are smart, decent and unrelated to this tosser! BTW, I won't mention how berk/birk/burke originated as this is a family forum!

Do you mean Luci's is 'La Cucaracha' - ie the Cockroach Song?! Very good! And very catchy! My three girls have one theme song between them which incorporates all their names. The tune is the theme from the kids' TV show Robin Hood, which was on in the 1960s and early '70s. Only DOLers who are 147 years old like me would remember it!

Yes, sad as it is, it might be time for Troy and the other mods to consider putting the site back to a breeders site. It has certainly been undermined. Souff Who is undermining what? It's simply not clear who you're talking about. And are you seriously saying there are groups that have 'infiltrated' DOL with an anti-dog message? Talk about paranoid conspiracy theories - it's really quite bizarre.

Which ratbags? And by the way, the only 'toxic slurs' I've seen are yours.

Dogs killed by the truckload obviously don't faze you. As long as they're not yours of course? Still prone to exaggeration with nothing to back it up, Chriswiddler. And this time you're offensive as well.

Poor little lambkin - sleep now, little one. Thank you Nic, Graysmum and Belgrael for evrything you did and for her peaceful end.

No, none of those things Lillipilli, I am merely seeking a response to Chris Widdler's preposterous claim. So please take a chill pill while we all await Ms/Mr Widdler's somewhat delayed response.

Does this mean you actually agree with CW's statement that he/she claims is a fact?

That's three cases and no doubt very, very distressing for the owners involved. But the sum of those cases does not address Chris Widdlers's preposterous claim that the RSPCA has killed and abused "far more animals than the animal abusers they claim to oppose".

What a ridiculous thing to say. Show us yer facts, Max!

Ah well, I'm confused then. I guess it's because you refer to yourself in the third person instead of the first, and (at least in relation to your previous post) to third persons (presumably the RSPCA) in the second person. This is why I thought you were referring directly to me.

You appear to be confused Souff. I have nothing to do with either the Herald article or the Political Animal website from which I extracted some info to demonstrate the federal angle.

Actually, I suspect the article was a means of plugging the RSPCA's new website www.politicalanimal.org.au. That website says puppy farms ARE a federal matter in some respects: What we want The laws governing puppy factories are a mess and need to be completely overhauled. Every level of government has a responsibility to fix this problem and has the power to make it harder for puppy factories to operate. Federal Government Tighten export provisions for the sale of puppies overseas – this is a small but lucrative market for puppy farmers. Ask the Australian Taxation Office to investigate known individuals involved in puppy farming – our information indicates that puppy farmers favour cash transactions and may not declare their full income. Work with State/Territory Governments to reform and harmonise animal welfare and consumer protection legislation and processes. Work with State/Territory Governments to develop national standards for the breeding and selling of companion animals.

No, those are your words. What I am saying is that it is NOT a Federal matter. There are dog owners in Australia who have the intelligence to know this, but the dopey ole Sydney Morning Herald forgets that from time to time and just goes on insulting people's intelligence, while others relish the opportunity to get publicity. Souff Oh sorry, when you said "but then again you know what they say about publicity" I naturally assumed...

Gee, cynical sniping from the sidelines - what a surprise.

So are you saying the article should not have been written because it's all about publicity for the RSPCA and not the iniquity of puppy farming?

Regardless of your beef with the RSPCA on other issues, surely they deserve some credit for trying to highlight the cruelty and abuse inherent in puppy farms across the country.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/whe...0806-11nra.html WHERE IS THE REGULATION ON PUPPY FARMS Every election begins as a race to become the campaign's self-declared underdog, as to whether this gives any party a psychological upper-hand is yet to be determined. In our eyes there is only one underdog, in the true sense of the term. This underdog has four legs and a tail. She is used as a breeding machine and her offspring are sold to satisfy demand for cute puppies in the pet retail market. This underdog is one of thousands bred indiscriminately in Australia's puppy farm industry. Think of a battery cage, put a dog in there and that's essentially what I'm talking about. Puppy farmers will sell to anyone – through pet shops, online, through newspapers, at markets and even out of car boots. The advent of internet sales has fueled this industry. Fixing the problem is an uphill battle for the RSPCA because no matter how inappropriate we find these establishments, the law by and large allows them to operate. This is the great irony of being the RSPCA. Our inspectors spend their days enforcing laws that we rarely think go far enough to adequately protect the health and welfare of breeding dogs or their puppies. One of our more recent cases near Sydney really knocked the wind out of everyone who attended. The stench from this puppy farm was so overwhelming that we had to bring in industrial-sized fans and wear breathing equipment. The ammonia build was so great it literally left you breathless – yet animals were living and breeding in these conditions for their entire lives. One dog was in a cardboard box with a number of puppies dead around her. She still had a pup lodged in her birth canal and had been in labour for more than six hours. Two other pups had been tied together with electrical cable, one of them suffocated to death. Perched on a cluttered cabinet above was a malnourished cat and her newborn kittens. These creatures were destined for the pet retail market where they were being sold to an unsuspecting public — 190 were rescued, many were pregnant and sadly, some were beyond saving. It would be nice to be able to say that this seizure was an isolated incident. But the puppy farming industry is booming and is one of the greatest animal welfare challenges the RSPCA faces. Politically it should be an easy sell and it is actually a relatively easy fix. We need enforceable regulation of the breeding and selling of dogs. We need local governments to make puppy breeders meet high standards and enforce these standards properly. We need the Commonwealth to tighten up export provisions for the sale of dogs overseas and for the Australian Tax Office to report suspected puppy farmers. We are a nation of dog lovers and this election gives us another chance to show it. Make your vote count for the real underdogs this election by becoming a Political Animal and ask your local federal representatives to do the same. (Heather Neil, who wrote this piece, is chief executive of RSPCA Australia.)

Please, you must convince your friend to get her pup desexed before her first season. Dog knows there are more than enough staffies and staffy-crosses awaiting the green dream in pounds across Australia.

Thanks Westtielover - I'll keep an eye out for it. Was it published recently? If you haven't already done so you might like to read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle' by David Wroblewski - perfect fodder for dogheads. It was recommended by Oprah's Book Club, but we won't hold that against it. A remarkable, although flawed, book. There's a dog in it called Almondine who haunts me still (but in a nice way) several years after I read it.

This article is interesting: www.vicboxer.com/articletwo.html And this is the article's punchline: "It should also be noted that, given the information and knowledge available concerning white Boxers, the provision or sale of white puppies could be regarded in law as negligence."