HeavyPaws

Why don't we get any rare breeds in my town? All we have are mass-produced staffies, labs or SWFs. If I want anything out of the ordinary I have to visit my friend's Wolfhounds or go to a show.

Who said I haven't done anything about it, or that anyone else hasn't done anything about it? How would you know? In fact I've sent many, many emails and letters to various sources, discussed the petshop problem with as many people as I can, I even bring it up if anyone stops me to pat Moon as ask where she came from. I've emailed and phoned newspapers, tv shows and magazines about their articles supporting designer or petshop dogs. I've promoted rescue and responsible breeders whereever and whenever I can. Not to mention the chain emails I send and threads I make on other forums telling the truth about petshops. Most of my family would rather die than consider a petshop puppy because of all the photos and facts I've shown them. I think I'm allowed to say I don't like it still happening when I've tried so damn hard to make it stop. It's a drop in the ocean. Every letter I send, there's 100 puppies being bought from petshops across the country. I see no end to it, and it disheartens me. How dare you judge me without knowing a thing about what I have or have not done. So, how many petshops have you personally closed down? I thought so.

Our local has a worse one "Designer puppies wanted!" with a list below of suggested """"breeds"""" they're looking for. Great ones, too, Germaweilers. Anyone up for the implications of taking home a BYB German Shep X Rotty with no social skills? Every time I see it I think if this isn't encouraging it, what is? It's like giving people a set manual of which breeds to mate so they can get money out of it. They disgust me and I don't see how they can keep doing it. WHY can't they see that it's wrong? It's so obvious! So, so obvious!

Moon goes to huge lengths to make sure I notice her. I'll sit on the couch and ignore her presence entirely. Usually she'll stand at the door wagging her tail, and if I keep ignoring her, her wagging gets slower and slower, until it stops. Then she whines, then paws the floor and play-bows. If that's ignored, she walks over to the couch and extends her neck so her head slowly enters the space between me and the tv, and then whines. Then she'll perform a trick, like 'shake' {whacking my kneecap with her shovel-like paw}, and if that's ignored she goes back to the start of the carpet, lie s down, rolls onto her back, peddles her legs in the air and whines like she has a belly ache. Then she'll lie on her side and pull herself along by her front paws to my feet, and roll back and forth on my feet, pawing my legs. If that fails, she goes into "OMG my mistress is dead! I must summon help!" mode, and runs around the lounge room barking and digging the carpet, and runs into random walls and windows, and then jumps onto the table and barks at the ceiling. Lord only knows what she thinks she's doing, but it ain't calling for help. This is usually when I break down laughing and she rushes over and onto my lap and I pull her ears and call her an idiot. And she loves it.

Oh my lord, I have a killer pitbull lurking in my family home! All this time I thought it was a great dane, obviously it's a rare merle pitbull though.

At exactly 11 every morning and 4 every afternoon, the guy across the road from my house walks out of the house with his whatever-oodle, the stands next to his fence nice and casual, he looks left, he looks right, and then he bends, picks up his dog, lifts him over the fence, looks the other way while the dog dumps a load on the neighbour's lawn, and then lifts the dog over the fence again. I swear to god, I am utterly serious. The first time I saw him do it I was walking to the station and I stopped to stare. Now that I leave for two hour long walks a day, I see him do it. 11:00 rolls around, and BAM, he's there. It's insane!

To teach me that the kitchen bench is nowhere near high enough for a cake I spent 6 hours making

Sam's Warehouse by any chance? I live right around the corner I got Moon about $30 worth of toys from there; she looked like an old Scrooge McDuck comic, rolling in piles of toys

Moon learned how to open doors by watching me {or by trial and error, I'm not giving her points for intelligence}. However, she did learn how to open locks by herself Dog owners know all this, they could have saved themselves some cash

I sent one, my fiance sent one, my mother, my father, my brother, my in laws and four of my sisters sent one. My sister went home tonight determined to get her husband and her four sons to send one each, and to get all her friends to send one. This has to stop

I think the most heartbreaking and disgusting thing about dog fighting is how the dogs do it because that's what their masters want. Their loyalty is abused to such an extent, their bravery is twisted and warped for entertainment's sake, their love of people is used against them. And yet the breed and the dogs involved continue to be loyal, continue to love, continue to fight just to please somebody. If a child of mine grew up to abuse an animal like the elevator man, like the dog fighting man, or like anyone else I see on Rescue Ink, I would without a second thought, disown them and do my best to see them punished to the full extent of the law. Animal abuse nestles in the darkest pits of a depraved soul, rubbing shoulders with child abuse, murder, rape, and domestic abuse. Anyone who can look down onto a cringing, blood stained dog that has fought all day and say to it "I will allow this to happen again tomorrow", cannot call themselves human and therefore can't complain of being treated like an animal themselves. I think the more support and encouragement we give to people like Rescue Ink, and all the lovely rescues we are fortunate to have here in Australia, the better. Every person is capable of saving an animal's life and the people that choose to save 10, 50, 100, or even 1000 animal lives during their own lifetime deserve more respect than anyone living and deserve a special place in heaven.

There's these 'tough toy' rings you can get with squeakers in them, Moon's is fleecy and quite large, with red stitching and canvas around the edges. Name of the company has totally escaped me, but it's to do with tough dogs for the Dane who chewed a golf ball sized chunk from the middle of a black XXL Kong, she couldn't budge a stitch, and she's really innovative in her killing techniques. We bought it for $60 but it's lasted two years of constant physical abuse and there's not a tear in it.

I wonder what else the moron will tell her to do

Nice teens are a rarity nowdays, but there's a very nice boy that my brother is friends with. He sometimes visits my brother at his house and if I hear he's there I always take Moon. He has a SBT that he got for his 15th birthday that he adopted as a 6 month old puppy and he's done the breed justice. She loves people, she adores other dogs, she's still going to advanced training even though she's two, she trots along nicely next to him and sits when he stops, she willingly gives up bones to other dogs, she's the very picture of health, she is just a wonderful, respectful dog. He dresses like a gangsta and looks like your garden variety moron teenager, but he's the most lovely and responsible 17 year old I've ever met.

I thought the Cane Corso was restricted? There's a restricted breeds sign in my vet that lists the Cane Corso as the first one on the list. Maybe they made a mistake too?

I love Best Friends Pet Warehouse. If you join as a member you get discounts and sometimes free stuff. I got a free grooming service and vet check for Moon. You're going to buy treats, bowls, collars and leashes and stuff anyway, why not get free stuff too? She hated the grooming, I opted for the wash, dry and brush, ear cleaning, nail trim and ear bows. The bows went beautifully with her bemused and angry expression and her lovely shiny coat.

I love his sarcasm "Hope I can get out fast...didn't bring backup.." He should've taken a club, he'd need it to stop the pitties mauling his face and hands with their vicious licky tongues.

Dogdammit Naomi, why'd you have to go and post that?! I'm crying like a lil kid

I know someone with a Saint Bernard X Corgi. Ugliest thing I have ever seen. It had the shape of an overgrown corgi, with half-long scraggly fur, Saint colouring but without eye patches, and a tail that looked like a furry antenna.

Harry was my legend when I was a little girl, he was my idol and I wanted to be just like him. I met him at the Royal Melbourne when I was 10, I told him I wanted to be a vet and he told me that if I loved animals and I worked very hard, I could be the best vet in the world and he looked forward to working with me. Those words made my entire year. so it crushes me to hear that he's done so much bad promoting over the years, and whenever I hear anything new against him I inwardly cringe.

I'll be the first to admit it. You remember the high winds a few weeks back in Melbourne? She rushed outside to attack the trees because the branches were moving in a threatening manner towards the house. This is why I want a Dobie. Anything that actually threatens me, Moon is either asleep during the incident or cowering under the table. However, should any inanimate object threaten my *perceived* safety, she's right in there with teeth bared and hackles bristling.

I'm assured that Moon is part Dobie; her family protection skills are, shall we say...unbelievable? Prepare yourselves for a harrowing tale of danger, of mystery, and of bravery which comes from within. One night I was preparing my child for slumber and had entered the bedroom of said child, when a rare and vicious Stuffed Ikea Snake {violent, violent beasts} that was napping in front of the doorway wrapped itself around my ankles and forcefully threw me to the floor. I knelt and clawed my way up the side of the bed, being knocked almost to sleep by the guard rail's pin failing and falling onto my face with an audible "thud". There I struggled in the dark, cursing as I sought to extract myself from the clutches of the bloodthirsty reptile. Lo, I had all but given up hope when across the doorway loomed the shadow of my trusted companion Moon, defender of the weak, champion of the crippled, killer of snakes. Mottled warrior that she is, she studied the scene before her and leapt into action. Thankfully she noticed that my pj pants were inhibiting my movement, and sought to remove them from the ends of the legs. Sadly, in the struggle my big-momma panties were revealed and these were also in danger of strangling my nethers, so she removed these as well, leaving both hanging in torn ribbons from my be-drooled flanks. As I struggled to my knees, in my panic swatting at my guard dog and cursing ever louder, she obviously noticed the killer reptile wrapped around my legs, so she used my back as a springboard to leap onto the bed, and sought to addle the...err...adder...as she leapt to and from the bed, using my back as a ramp. When she leapt onto the bed the last time, she prepared herself for her last spring onto the floor, so I took her collar in hand and used it to haul myself upright. Would you believe such a brave defender of hearth and home would also offer herself as a service dog? You heard it here first, DOLers. Yelping loudly, to announce to the snake that she'd had enough of it's shenanignans and this was it's last chance to release her mistress, Moon backpedalled off the bed and dragged me upright. I knew she had little chance to survive the snake's last attack, so I rushed for the doorway to call for help. Moon, helpful protector that she is, saw me lagging and thinking I was in trouble of a second attack that may end my life thanks to my bumbling stupidity, rushed forward to assist me out the door, accidently lunging past me and knocking me sideways against the doorframe, giving me a bruise that covered my face like a Saint Bernard's eye patch for a week, and sending me spinning back onto the floor, where the vicious snake softened my landing. Can you believe it, but the poor, brave defender of her family was not showered with kisses and steak, but instead was thrust out into the dark, muddy backyard with a resounding "And don't come back until you've grown a ****ing brain, you dumb ****!" For Sale: Idiot merle female, 3 years old, no papers, desexed. Big, stupid. Does not come with accessories as the dumb piece of **** doesn't deserve to be fed, walked or brushed. Any reasonable offer considered

We all know shoddy dog owners that we wouldn't trust with a dead mouse, let alone a puppy, and we all bang our heads on the wall at times over the pure undiluted stupidity of some owners but...there are good owners out there, and surely, surely we know some. My own story, I was walking Moon at the creek yesterday, dilly-dallying as usual and looking at the ducks, and a lady with a rott pup came up and said "Hi, I was just wondering if I could greet your dog? He's not been socialised with a giant breed yet" {hand motion at her pup} and we did a lovely little greet. Her pup Binka was shy at first but warned up quickly when she knelt next to him and put her hand on his back, and they both greeted Moon together. In the end they were rolling around licking and play-bowing, she told him to "settle down", and he sat and looked up at her, she gave him a treat and Moon got one too {liver, mmmm}, then we talked for a bit and I got her number to arrange a play date. In a town that is home to idiots with "staffies", oodles and yappy aggressive leash rats with zero social skills and the manners of an ape, this was like a breath of fresh air. Binka was very calm and her technique with him was fantastic to watch. He was presented with a dog so much larger than himself, he showed that he was unsure and instead of ignoring his body-language or pushing him past his comfort zone, she showed him in turn that everything was okay, she gave her support with a touch but let the meet be independant, and when he was sure of himself she stood up and let him proceed. He got a bit worked up at once point and Moon got a nip on her tail, she put a paw on his neck and pushed him down gently but the owner didn't interfere at all, she didn't scoop him up screeching "Oh my dear puppykins! The big mean dog hurt you?! Bad big doggy!", she just looked down and then back up to talk to me. And afterwards, with the settle command, even though Moon was standing right there ready to play and was a huge distraction, he still sat next to his Mummy, and looked up, completely ignoring us. Of course 30 seconds later once she said "alright", he was like "Bye Mum, who cares about the stupid treat, here's a big dog and she smells like ducks!" He was a fantastic example of his breed and I can fully expect him to grow up to continue being an awesome reminder that BSL is stupid. So tell me how much YOU love responsible owners, and what experiences you've had with people that make you feel like there's hope in the world

I made a huge mistake when I took my cousin and her beagle to pick up their new beagle puppy. Samson took off running with the other 6 tri-coloured adult beagles and when it came to wade into the fray and take him back home, we had no idea which one he was. It was a whirlwind of black, white and caramel brown, swirling in ever-increasing eddies around our feet; ears gaily flapping in the wind, paws tearing up the earth and the same response from each "Samson? I'm not Samson, I think I saw him go that way.." {well that was the general look we got} Eventually we got him when they all slowed down and went for a drink and he looked mightily guilty

Ivy is one of my favourite dogs to stalk the photos of