Longcoat

What is wrong with sitting in the gutter of a cul-de-sac with some other children!! You are seriously not going to say this is wrong and the parents or kids are at fault for sitting in front of their house!!! Why cant a dog just be a 'bad' dog, why is there always an excuse? I dont believe in BSL, but I DO believe if a child is bitten by a dog then it should be PTS. ESPECIALLY in this case where it appears to have been unprovoked. OH ETA... in my 40+ years I HAVE seen dogs of all and any breed be aggressive.. I comes back to the individual dog. You cant claim that ALL huskies are not aggressive the same as you cant claim that ALL pitbulls are. You cant have it both ways. Dogs don't have to like kids, my dog hates them and the provocation is simply that the dog doesn't like kids which is enough to raise a dog's defense. I prefer a dog that consistantly dislikes kids because owning a dog like that, you handle the dog accordingly and NEVER allow the dog to come in contact with kids for any accidents to happen. Too often, people think their dog is ok with kids, don't supervise the situation properly and kids get bitten.

What's done is done, maybe they were looking for a win for all unpapered amstaffs or pitbulls, i don't think calling them stupid is going to change anything. What if the thought, hey he's an amstaff and he's 'got off' what about all the other dogs (pits), they're all the same so why not let us own them aswell.Personally i don't think the council would ever have lost, they wouldn't go back on what they thought was right, and would spend whatever it took to get their way. They're the real reason all amstaff owners now find themselves in. not Ms Chivers. All she has done is care about her dog and fought tooth and nail for him, sure i don't know why this evidence was produced, but it's done, and all papered amstaff owners may look at the back yard pitbull owner in a different light, for now they will be classed as the same. That's not uncommon with the anti-BSLer's putting the spotlight on other breeds to try and get their's off the hook It's a wonder the bite stats didn't come out to put some heat on GSD's, Rotties, Dobes etc as they usually do. Not that I support BSL in any way...........but if the anti-BSL crowd don't be careful what they are doing like in this case, they can be a dangerous lot. It is Ms Chivers fault totally from the beginning buying an unpapered dog. Dedicated dog people have been campaigning for years for people to buy pedigree papered dogs from registered breeders, personally, like thousands of others, I haven't had an unpapered dog for 30 years and have no interest in ever owning one again, but everyone knows better and the one needing a papered dog more than anyone in the circumstances was Ms Chivers You have to admire the dedication for someone to fight and protect their dog which is commendable, but a silly slip up to save "ONE" dog has the potential to have "HOW MANY" Amstaffs possibly facing the needle route to Rainbow Bridge There are some good lessons to be learned from this case and hopefully some people have learned to re-access their approach with anti BSL campaigns as to how the best intentions can backfire for the worse.

Restricted dogs Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The decision to make such a local law is at the discretion of each local government, the Minister and state government have limited powers to intervene in local government laws. Rubbish Jed, above is the restricted dogs of Towoomba and Amstaffs are not subject to the Customs Act. We have been down this path previosly. No councils can or have still in force the restriction of any breeds other than subjects of the Customs Act as of July 2009. Couldn't be bothered. Can't you understand what you have written and bolded (above)? Your own quotation disagrees with your argument. I'll write it again Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The customs Act refers to restricted breeds and only those breeds can be restricted by council. However, council doesn't have to restrict any breeds at all which they have the option. That's the Law Jed, your interpretation is wrong No, you're wrong. You have no understanding of the matter at all. You can't understand the written word, or the law, yet you are telling everyone else they are wrong. Try to read it and comprehend it, will you please? You sound very much like a poster named Rex. Jed, think about it more carefully please???. The customs act has nothing to do with local council. Are you saying that a local council can add breeds to the Customs Act for import restriction???. The Customs Act is about the importation of certain dog breeds which it restricts. Those breeds that the Customs Act restricts can also be restricted by local council if they so choose. The Customs Act has nothing to do with the keeping of certain breeds, it's soley about importation/exportation. No, councils can't add anything to the import bans. They have no power to do that. They do, however, have the power to ban breeds from their council areas. The APBT is included in the importation bans, yet they were not banned from council areas when the customs bans were first enacted. That came later. Councils have added breeds to the bans in the past and they will continue to do so. Read the import bans you quoted yourself. They state that councils can add breeds - at will. No further dogs will be banned from import, but councils will ban further breeds from their cities and shires, as they have done already. The only thing, imho, which will save AST being added to GCCC is Dawn whatsername, the GCCC councillor who is anti bans, and will probably fight in council against AST being added. But with the supreme court ruling, other councils may well add AST to the bans. The local council doesn't need to work under the Customs Act should they be empowered to restrict any breeds at will and could have their own lists. However, they don't have their own list in their bylaws, they refer the list of restricted breeds to the list as per the Customs Act. What I originally wrote was copied and pasted off the Towoomba council heading of "Restricted Breeds" which tells you to refer to the Customs Act. Towoomba council doesn't provide a list of restricted breeds in it's bylaws as an example.

Many of the Amstaff/APBT people claim the two breeds are not the same..........so who's telling the truth, or is the APBT more of a "working line" Amstaff like a working line GSD or Field bred Labrador.......same dog, different leg action

Restricted dogs Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The decision to make such a local law is at the discretion of each local government, the Minister and state government have limited powers to intervene in local government laws. Rubbish Jed, above is the restricted dogs of Towoomba and Amstaffs are not subject to the Customs Act. We have been down this path previosly. No councils can or have still in force the restriction of any breeds other than subjects of the Customs Act as of July 2009. Couldn't be bothered. Can't you understand what you have written and bolded (above)? Your own quotation disagrees with your argument. I'll write it again Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The customs Act refers to restricted breeds and only those breeds can be restricted by council. However, council doesn't have to restrict any breeds at all which they have the option. That's the Law Jed, your interpretation is wrong No, you're wrong. You have no understanding of the matter at all. You can't understand the written word, or the law, yet you are telling everyone else they are wrong. Try to read it and comprehend it, will you please? You sound very much like a poster named Rex. Jed, think about it more carefully please???. The customs act has nothing to do with local council. Are you saying that a local council can add breeds to the Customs Act for import restriction???. The Customs Act is about the importation of certain dog breeds which it restricts. Those breeds that the Customs Act restricts can also be restricted by local council if they so choose. The Customs Act has nothing to do with the keeping of certain breeds, it's soley about importation/exportation.

The court rejected that Tango was an Amstaff and ruled him as a Pitbull. The court didn't rule that Pitbull's were Amstaffs. There are no restrictions upon Amstaffs. No they didn't: They ruled that Tango IS an AmStaff and then they ruled that AmStaffs ARE APBTs. So it goes like this: Tango IS an AmStaff, so he is actual fact an APBT because they are the same breed, ergo so he IS a restricted dog... this is now going to go to appeal and if the appeal is not successful there is precedent in the Qld supreme court that AmStaffs are in actual fact APBTs I think we need to see the "proper" report. There is now another version that Tango is a Staffy??? None the less, the lesson learned for future reference is buy a pedigree dog from a registered breeder or foster papered dogs

Restricted dogs Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The decision to make such a local law is at the discretion of each local government, the Minister and state government have limited powers to intervene in local government laws. Rubbish Jed, above is the restricted dogs of Towoomba and Amstaffs are not subject to the Customs Act. We have been down this path previosly. No councils can or have still in force the restriction of any breeds other than subjects of the Customs Act as of July 2009. Couldn't be bothered. Can't you understand what you have written and bolded (above)? Your own quotation disagrees with your argument. I'll write it again Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The customs Act refers to restricted breeds and only those breeds can be restricted by council. However, council doesn't have to restrict any breeds at all which they have the option. That's the Law Jed, your interpretation is wrong

The court rejected that Tango was an Amstaff and ruled him as a Pitbull. The court didn't rule that Pitbull's were Amstaffs. There are no restrictions upon Amstaffs.

The ruling was that Tango is a Pitbull NOT that a Pitbull and Amstaff is the same breed.

Restricted dogs Under the commonwealth Customs Act 1901, local governments can prohibit certain breeds (or cross breeds) of dogs in their jurisdictions, under a local law. The decision to make such a local law is at the discretion of each local government, the Minister and state government have limited powers to intervene in local government laws. Rubbish Jed, above is the restricted dogs of Towoomba and Amstaffs are not subject to the Customs Act. We have been down this path previosly. No councils can or have still in force the restriction of any breeds other than subjects of the Customs Act as of July 2009.

This is a genuine question - why would being an ANKC breed matter in terms of legal action? I can see that politically it means there is a lobby group with a lot of members likely to oppose a ban, but really the ANKC and the affiliated canine associations are just clubs that keep registries and run events. How legally (rather than politically) is recognition of a breed by them any defense against banning or any reason why legal action for damages would be more succesful than for any other dog? It's reasonable to say that if a state organisation for example Dogsvic who list breeds recognised by the ANKC, implies that those breeds are permitted to be kept and is the sole reason a person selected that particular breed. If the breed was banned to the point that dogs of that breed were seized and destroyed, who ever is responsible for banning the breed can be sued for damages created by the loss of their pet. Breeds not recognised by the ANKC or crossbreeds have no official verification to imply that such a breed of dog is permitted to be kept, in other words keep one at your own risk. One could argue that the only reason for investing in the particular breed was because of ANKC recognition.

Agreed Seriously LC, could you show us a video of your dog in competition? No problems, I will organise one

Depends on the reinforcement history and how well the response has been conditioned. I'm not 'purely positive', but the value of an individual reinforcement v level of distraction becomes a non-issue even at my level of expertise. It certainly does depend upon reinforcement history but in the reliability crunch, there will be some distraction somewhere greater than the reward on offer and the dog will bolt, or disobey especially off leash. Diva was right, it is not that the distraction is "greater than the reward on offer" but that the dog is not conditioned, through it's reinforcement history, to respond in that environment. Believe it or not, it is not a competition between reward and distraction (unless we are discussing bribery). Otherwise how would you explain dogs who recall off live prey, not knowing whether there is a reward available or not? That's were a dog trained to recall to avoid punishment works in any environment. I agree with what you are saying here Aidan, but conditioning a dog to respond in so many different environments, there will be one environment missed being the time the dog finds it's fate. That's were E Collars etc come into play, drop means drop so to speak.

You have just confirmed that a "few" SAR dogs are rewarded with food obviously not all which is the point. Yes, the rest are trained with toys. None are trained with praise/correction alone. William Koehler's were................how did he manage that???

That is not universally true. Selecting a few non-specific examples does not the truth reveal. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that positive reinforcement will produce extraordinarily reliable behaviours over thousands upon thousands of trials. Punishment does not produce the same level of reliability in the long-term. Practical considerations, not ultimate reliability, dictate the use of +P and -R in the field. What some of the K9 trainers have told me Aidan, is that some behaviours cannot be corrected effectively with positive reinforcement and punishment in those circumstances creates a better result???.