Linda K

they said on TV this morning it was a spoodle. Shame

given the talk this morning by both the Fed gov & opposition, certainly sounds like they want to try and make a national heading on this too, and both parties are taking up the sharks on legs thing, so would think on this there would certainly be support on both sides. Doubt anywhere will be safe for any dogs that they deem to be of a threatening breed, and I would not be thinking I was safe as my breed is not a threat, your breed is safe only so long as the baying mobs deem it to be.

start of the end I think for so many breeds who will get caught up in this, and just makes me cry - I know so many gentle dogs that would be targetted under the new "standard" the Vic Gov is using as their Restricted Breed identikit document and do not deserve it. Makes me very scared as a pet owner - I am scared of what agenda is behind this stirring the pot

these bits were what I was referring to

yep, here you go My link

This could also impact some people

Under the DPI Q & A's posted on the Vic website, Staff X are regarded as a restricted breed. Already seeing many of these now being dumped before the end of the month in our council area (Hume), very sad for these dogs, and shows lack of responsibility from their "owners", who have done this to them.

these bits are just charming

depends what you want to do, as a beginner, good lens, if you want to get serious, you will find the 5.6 at the long end of the lens very restrictive, but if you are just a happy snapper, it will be fine.

Also thought you did a great job, all your guys looked very well behaved and I think you were awesome. GS looked like a prat with his little red bow tie

which they are not meant to be using according to what has been posted in one of the other topics about the adendum that the US clubs have added to their standard

was in the little box off to the side, about 2/3 of the way down the page, where it says When is a pit bull not a pit bull http://images.theage.com.au/2011/08/31/2592689/pitbull_ipad-200x0.jpg

This article in todays Age seems to answer this My link which says that if you have papers or a vet certificate showing the dog is not a pit bull, that you should be OK

and so it begins, day 1 of the hotline and it had over 100 phone calls yesterday to the dob in a dog hotline, resulting n 37 dogs being reported to council to be investigated, wonder just how many of those are truly dangerous, and how many are neighbour disputes

as others have said, with the warm break, it has started. Re snakes and pools, in Melb, there are a lot of places around Eltham, Lower Plenty etc that have houses that back onto the Yarra River/. My OH< who is a tradey, had to do a job at one of these once, replacing the doors, and was talking to one new owner while he was working. He commented on how the pool decking was brand new, and was told, yes, these people bought the place, and wanted to replace the decking around the pool, and how when they lifted off the old decking, there was a whole lot of tiger snakes beneath it, not sure if the pool or the river had attracted them, but certainly makes me not want to live either near a river or have a pool!!!!

and so the LDH just casually drops into the discussion just how many dogs they now kill because GS thinks it looks like a APBT so bang you're dead. Geez I wish that millionaire had paid more attention to stuff like that and actually gone inside and seen how they really operated. And with a push now being made to take this stuff nationally and not just Vic law, it is really getting worrying.

they have own in Thomastown, it sells reptiles, fish, birds, rabbits and native mice (as well as ordinary ones and rats) - it did have some kittens from Lort Smith (? I think), Never used the grooming thing. They also hold a puppy school on the weekends there

thought I recognised his name, I have his books, the outback mongrels and little mongrels, they are simply stunning images. Good luck with the shoot

Matthew B, should I be flattered that you think my post is the most apologetic one you have read? What a load of bosh, you were the one saying that all of what happened to you was entirely the breeds fault, I was merely pointing out (as have many others), that many facts in your story do not support that, but instead showed very poor ownership responsibility on behalf of owners. I am certainly not saying this is always the case in every dog attack. And yes, before you jump on me, I have myself been snapped at and attacked by dogs, and had one of my sons having a dog jump on and try to attack him ( a tradey's dog, which was a lab x funnily enough), which had escaped from inside his ute, and had the owner abuse me for the fact his dog ran over and tried to attack us when we were walking through a park (which was not a dog park), but none of these incidents would make me want to have these breeds eradicated off the face of the earth, as you seem to want to, as I know that in all my cases, either the fault was mine or due to the owners lack of training, education or responsibility for their dogs actions creating the scenarios. If I considered they were due to the dog being that breed, then my list would read german shepherd, dachsund, maltese/schitzu x, heinz 57 (a real bitzer), staffy x, lab & lab x). Whilst I am sure that there can be instances where a mating can produce a dog (or other animal), that is suspect and no amount of training would prevent that, I would certainly never say this is always the case as you are, and that therefore that breed has no right to exist - that is overreactive and as has been demonstrated time and time again to you, it does not work.

not sure if they would have them there, but at the moment, Amazon.co.uk is having free priority shipping on all books and DVDs to Aus & NZ (got a heap of Dr Who stuff as they actually reduce the price on them after the seasons have passed to a cheap price - unlike here where they are all still $99 for the box set vs 10 pounds (approx $16)) I think that is on till the end Sep, so worth a look

not a dog breeder but a cat one, and the only thing that would stop me is if I found out that the person buying was doing so as a front for someone who wanted one of my cats, but who either myself or my mentor (who owns the studs I will use), does not want to get the lines. I also have a contract with all of my queens that says that those breeders approval has to be given for me to sell a breeding cat before I do so, and that I cannot sell kittens directly from their queens into their states. But if it was just something like that described above, and I thought they would be the perfect home for one of my kittens, with the exception of 1 person I have "met" on both this forum and catworld, there is no one who I would refuse to sell to based on what they have said online (but several who I would most definitely sell to based on their common sense they have continually displayed!!!!) The only people I know I would not sell to I have met elsewhere in person, and their actions have certainly dictated I would never let any of my kittens anywhere near them.

I think Matthew B meant that the person making the comment that because they have been attacked by people that all people should be banned was making a juvenile comment (not that I want to defend any of the rest of what he was saying, as he clearly did not get the point being made about it did not matter how far away the cricket nets were, nor how long they had been there before the dog spotted them, the point being made of if the dog considered that as its territory and had only just noticed them there (perhaps as the owner had only just noticed them and had maybe let the dog out knowing what would happen) then it would then have reacted and defended its territory, I also think the point could have been valid about them having bats - if the dog had been attacked with bats before, then it was reacting to that. Would not have liked to be attacked, but sounds like this was a bad owner case, not a bad dog, more a dog that never stood a chance with a tool for an owner

if you don't think the Vic lib party are capable of doing what they have said they will do, and that they are bluffing then you obviously don't live here. Living under Jeff and his schools of the future program - a lot of teachers I am sure thought he would not do what he did (much to their chagrin as the teachers union had backed the libs during their campaign as the then labor party would not give them the payrise they were after) and policy then became known amongst educational circles as "the schools of the Fuhrer" program, when school after school was closed down and sold off despite community protests. Pollies know when something is good politically, and this one has the uninformed masses baying for change, it is popular amongst Joe Public, and won't be much of an impost on the gov as it will be up to the owner to prove the dog should not be destroyed, not for the council to prove it should - you can't prove that your dog does not have any pit bull in him, or any other breed they deem as no longer welcome, then they no longer have the right to exist, in the eyes of the Libs, and the owner will have no say in that. Sadly the opposition has also said they support these measures (of course, again since it is popular politically), so no support there for common sense to prevail. Mob mentality at its best - the old Yes Minister phrase of, We Need to DO Something, this is something, lets do it, no matter how stupid what is being proposed

urgh just typed out a post and my cat walked across the keyboard and deleted it, so will start again Listening to the minister on the radio last night, I would be very scared if my family pet was a dog that people would think is a bull type - he has said that they will be ending the registration amnesty as soon as it can be arranged, and that they will be encouraging members of the public to use the dob in line to ring up and dob in any dogs in their neighbourhood they believed were pit bull, pit bull cross, or simply dangerous, council will then investigate and if dog is deemed by them to be a pit bull or x, then unless the owners can prove otherwise, dogs will be seized and destroyed. Other dogs will be subject to their assessment, and then may also be destroyed. On answering the question as to whether the dob in line might be abused by someone with a grudge wanting to dob in a noisy dog (for instance), and not one that is truly dangerous, he said that he was sure the council would discover this in their testing before the dog was destroyed. Myself, I think it is the start of something bad as far as dog ownership goes, in that someone else can just decide that your breed is now illegal to own, and no matter what training or how well educated, housed and socialised your dog is, it could be seized and destroyed at any time with no recourse of appeal for you, and if I was a breeder it would make me very scared that they might decide my breed should be next to add to the list, and I could do nothing to stop all my dogs being seized and destroyed in the guise of public safety. PETA must be rubbing their hands together here, the gov is giving them a very big leg up in their campaign to have no companion animals around at all.

I think he did a great job, got the point across and just loved when the dog started licking his face, sadly though I am not sure he changed their minds, but hope he made an impact on others