SpotTheDog

Just now this second, reading this thread, I heard the news report on the radio in the background. They described the dog as a bull mastiff. The word 'pit' wasn't mentioned. There is quite literally an enormous difference between pitbull and bull mastiff. My heart goes out to the Chol family, but I'd love to see something like 'Ayen's Law', which uses animal management strategies based on proven behaviour and owner responsibility to reduce the risk to children from dogs. Here's hoping.

On the news this evening it said he was left in the car with the windows open and a bucket of water in the passenger side footwell!

I think it's because we fluff the definition of 'education'. Education isn't simply the supply of information. It has to be about making people think. It has to be an education with a message that makes people use their own brain. If the simple supply of information were sufficient to influence behaviour, we would all recycle, turn off the lights when we leave the room, put the air con at 24 degrees or higher, not let the tap run when we brush our teeth, pick up dog crap when it happens, buy only free range poultry products, so on. In the modern world we're bombarded with more information in our lives than ever before - I heard a random stat recently that said children today are inundated with more info by age 12 than their grandparents were in their entire lives. The provision of information is useless unless it's done in a way to trigger a response - make the recipient think, and they'll change their own behaviour. You may have to keep reminding them to think because they'll lose energy and drive in keeping up the change, but they have to think for themselves or everything you say falls on deaf ears.

This video REALLY bothers me, but not for reasons you may think. Five - FIVE - police officers. UK police aren't normally armed with guns, but they may have had batons, mace or other pepper spray, or even tasers. That dog is too big to be a pitbull, but I've heard he may be a pitbull x dobermann. Either way, he looks like he may be about 30-35kgs based on his height and build. FIVE police officers, one 30-35kg dog. And basically the 'cult of personality' around the pitbull terrier has become so terrifying that instead of piling in on the dog to rescue their mate, instead of pepper spraying it or beating it with batons or even all piling in with boots in or piling physically onto the thing, they dance around it and it systematically decimates them, taking off fingers (that's what 'life-changing injuries' is in reference to') as it picks them off one by one. When I was a kid, if a dog went off, every adult in the place would pile in, fuelled by outrage that a dog would misbehave so. Often an attack that may have started didn't escalate because people intervened. (I lived in a large cul-de-sac at a time when people routinely didn't desex their dogs, and it was normal to allow them out the front door in the morning with the kids and they'd all hang around together.) I just find it hard to believe that there are so many people standing back, basically. I think I was hoping for a coordinated rush on the dog.

What a horrible situation. The idea of someone else leaving doors open etc gives me the heebies. I'm in a rental property at the moment, and it was vacant for some time before we occupied it. Subsequently it's requiring a good deal of maintenance. The number of tradies that come to the house, let themselves in, and then because they don't want to open and close the front door and screen door while going in and out to the van, they leave my front door wide open, and fix the screen door so it stands open too. Even when I've said to them 'please watch the pets with the front door', they still don't get it. I end up standing guard at the front door while they come and go. In context, I have a dog and six cats - I always contain the dog when there are tradies or whatever coming to the house. With the cats, however, it's difficult. I can't shut them in a room for the entire day just because tradies might turn up at some point in a six hour window. When they hear the front door, they run and hide, so I can't round them up. It's getting to the point where, when I answer the door, I'm going to have to give the tradies a 'before you work in my house' speech (which, however nice I try to be, may make me look like a fruitcake and rub them up the wrong way).

I have six cats and my dog. When I brought him home as a pup, five of the cats were horrified and kept a healthy distance. Sasquatch, however, took one look at the pup and full on launched himself at him. I had forgotten that my rescue cat had come from a home where his previous owner set his dogs upon his cats for entertainment. Sas was rescued from that home aged four to five weeks of age (which is why I'd forgotten it) and had lived with me as a foster carer, then owner, since that age, so I just hadn't given any thought to it whatsoever. Initially, segregate the animals. Give the pup a crate, or keep the cat out of the room. The cat will take a number of weeks to adjust to the pup. You can buy Feliway diffusers (synthetic feline happy hormones in a plug-in air freshener) and plug them in around the house. (They last a month.) You can still do things like create a positive association with good behaviour with a cat, it just doesn't work as quickly as with a dog. A good way to introduce the pup first is to put the cat up somewhere high like a table and bring the pup into the room on a leash. At ground level, a cat is far more likely to go all out for a new pup than if it's up high (but even then a territorial cat may launch itself at the pup so yes, you need to be on guard.) Let the pup approach the table, but not jump at it (and definitely not get his front paws onto the table if he's a larger dog, because that's a sure fire way to get a cat in the face). It's good if there are two people - one the cats knows and likes to reassure and stroke the cat, praising it and distracting with a treat, and one to control the pup. When the cat hisses or swipes (and it'll be pretty much when and not if), just remove the pup and distract the cat. You can do these introductions in short bursts over a period of up to two weeks, segregating the animals otherwise. Don't crate the pup in or near a room the cat considers as 'his', and definitely don't let the pup near the cat's food bowls, water bowl or litter trays. It's not uncommon for the cat to totally avoid the room where it first met the pup, or approach that room with extreme caution, fur half inflated, for the next few times it goes in there. I'd advise crating the pup in the room with something nice to keep him occupied, then letting the cat in. Utterly ignore the pup, and spoil the cat. Reassure the cat, stroke it, make soothing noises. If he hisses or launches at the dog crate, distract him, move between him and the crate or carry him away from the crate. As soon as he relaxes even a fraction, give him a treat. Cats respond well to kitty treat bags - they'll often respond to the rustle of the bag the way a dog would to a whistle. Try feeding the cat treats in the pup's presence. When he's had his treats, remove the cat from the room, praising all the while. Cats, while they can form a very strong social bond with other cats (and I would never have a single-cat household again), take a long time to accept a newcomer. They're not naturally social to new animals, and there's a normal period of hissing and swatting that takes place during this time. Cats are strongly territorial. You need to be careful, in this period, not to admonish the cat for being unfriendly to the new pup. If you give out to the cat, ostracise it, push it away and shout at or squirt it for being 'mean' to the new pup, you can end up with worse problems - an unhappy cat that's unsure of its position and starts to pee all over the house, or if it has outdoor access, a cat that simply moves in with the neighbours. The lady whose cat is attacking her has a big issue - that's a very agitated cat, whose territory has been invaded, and the aggression could soon be coupled with inappropriate peeing in the house and so on. I'd say she needs to go back to the beginning and start over. After initial introductions of a week or two, you'll have a status quo of a growing pup and a disgruntled and uncomfortable cat who's a bit jumpy and reactive. Using treats and space, create a truce between the pets. Ignore growls from the cat - and even swats. Try not to let the pup get close enough to get smacked in the first place. A full on attack is obviously a different matter, but there's really a balance to be achieved between not alienating the cat, and protecting the pup. You can also work on scent transferring by rubbing the cat with the pup's blanket (and vice versa). Another problem is the pup will quickly grow into bouncing boisterous older pup before the cat's adjusted to it as a newcomer, and then you're dealing with bad behaviour in both directions - the pup bouncing at the cat and the cat smacking up the pup. During this period, when the pup isn't crated in the house I'd keep him on-leash inside the house. Try to never have your pup indoors, out of his crate, off leash with the cat - because he'll bounce at or chase the cat and the smacking he'll get often won't teach a lesson at all because it's just part of the game and he's too excited to learn from it. You don't want the cat to have to give the pup the sort of serve that WOULD teach him a lesson. Cats also cannot read dog body language. They understand some of it, but not other parts - they find wagging confusing (because a cat wags when it's pissed off). They don't recognise bared teeth (cats don't snarl, they hiss). A bark is just offensive. They do understand submissive postures of blinking, head turning, lying down and yawning (but not particularly lip licking). They think the puppy play bounce (jump in and out again) is an all out attack and will often give chase to the pup (which the pup thinks is great, but it doesn't do much for canine-feline relations in the longer run). The good thing is your pup will probably learn how to speak cat pretty quickly. (Cats appear to never learn how to speak dog.) The cat's inability to learn dog becomes a problem if the dog is resource guarding as it gets older - a big potential issue if you have a large dog. Every last one of my cats would fail to recognise my dog standing over his food bowl with bared teeth and head low, making whale eye at them, and would stick their head in his bowl anyway. It would only take one snap from my 30kg dog to do damage, so as their owner I never feed meals together - he doesn't get to their food and they don't get to his. I also regularly do a 'circle of treats' - everyone sits around me in a circle and I hand-feed something like liver treats out of a packet. The dog learns not to compete with the cats for food because he is ALWAYS included in treats, and the cats learn to adjust to the dog because he can get up really close to them when there's food on the go because they're just focused on the food. Sasquatch spent a full year smacking Gus up. I made some mistakes - didn't heed my own advice, left the growing pup off-leash inside the house (and sure enough he chased the cats, who knew eh). I had to go away for a while when the pup was young and DH took the approach that they'd 'sort it out themselves' and left the cats and the pup out in the yard together - the one permanent scar Gus has on his body is where Sas split the tip of his ear with flailing ninja kitty paws during one of these disastrous excursions. I did learn that the key to introductions is control, and time. Control the situation, and give it time. You can't rush it. A note on continuing relationships - my dog is big enough to do the cats serious damage, so to a degree I allowed the cats to lord it over him while he was a pup. If he shoved his nose in their backsides and got a slap for it, I didn't intervene. If he crowded them and got a slap for it, I didn't intervene. As he matured (he's nearly two years old now) he learned through his own training that positive behaviour gets a reward and negative behaviour doesn't (and particularly negative behaviour may get a negative consequence like a time out). Cats don't have the same sense of justice as we do though, so occasionally the dog would get a slap from one of the cats for having done nothing wrong. (Dog dozing on his bed. Cat walks past. Dog senses cat and lifts his head up to see who's passing. Cat slaps dog for moving.) In those cases I DID intervene and chastised the cat and it quickly became evident that the dog would look to me for redress when the cat had slapped him for nothing. I may sound insane, but I can guarantee you the dog understood the cat was getting its comeuppance for bad behaviour and I believe I can see benefit in having created that association, because the dog seems to have learned that he doesn't need to take matters into his own hands (or teeth) if the cats have a go at him for no reason.

There's a survey as well as the opportunity to respond to the paper, but be sure to read the paper before answering the survey so that you properly understand the Queensland definitions of a regulated dog (an umbrella title that includes both dogs proven to have behavioural issues, and restricted breeds who are assumed to have potential behaviour issues based on appearance!) I read the survey, then read the paper, then answered the survey - and my first round answers would have been different to the ones I submitted after reading the paper (and would have oboviously revealed that I hadn't read teh paper!)

It's only derogatory in Australia. ( Australia, where 'mongrel' is derogatory and 'wog' is in everyday use... :laugh: ) Or even 'Bitsa' or some other term meaning 'crossbreed' or 'dog of unknown heritage'.

The only problem I have with the promotion of pure bred dogs is how somehow, the message that breed is a good indication of traits, size and behaviour got twisted about so people are now determined to identify any and all breeds that are in their dog. I'd like to reclaim the word 'mongrel'. When people ask me what my dog is, I say 'a mongrel'. And they press and say 'well yes of course, but what BREED is he a cross with?' And I usually say 'No idea, I don't think it matters really though. He's quite the mongrel.' If we all used 'mongrel' a lot more there might be less emphasis on breed - the pictures show the ridiculousness of identifying a dog as a staffy X. I started posting on these forums after getting my dog from a shelter in Victoria who had him listed as a staffy X. I told them I felt he was more Bull Arab (another glorified term for 'mongrel' really, but with more of a suggestion of size) and they told me 'Yes, but we always just say 'staffy X' because people don't like the word 'bull' and everybody loves staffies'. (Yes, I'm aware of the stupidity of not realising that staffy is short for staffordshire BULL terrier.) The upshot is my mongrel landed at his adult weight of 30kgs aged nearly two years. He has shoulders like a tank, a head that's pitbull type, one ear like a staffy and the other that sits upright like the Tramp from the Disney movie, and an arse like a greyhound. I have him registered as a bull arab X, (partly because the irony of registering my dog as a mongrel mongrel entertains me, but also because again I think it's a more fair indication of size). But seriously, can we have the word 'mongrel' back? Can we register our dogs more honestly like 'terrier type mongrel, 20kgs' or 'bull type mongrel, 25 kgs' or 'sighthound type mongrel, 70cms, 35 kgs' instead of making up some crossbreed rubbish?

There's one thing that makes this argument so vitriolic these days. Litigiousness. When I was a kid, if I harassed a dog and it bit me, my parents would say 'you should've left it alone' and the dog owner would drop over a box of chocs to cheer me up while I was at home crying and sulking. (I'm talking a snap here, not a sustained attack.) These days, if a kid harassed my dog and he snapped at them, I'd expect the ranger on my doorstep telling me he was taking my dog to euthanise it, and I wouldn't send the kid as much as a get-well-card for fear of it counting as admission of liability.

Mason_Gibbs, what age was your dog when his allergies started to show? My guy is almost 22 months old, so nearly two years, and has literally never had a problem like this until we moved to Townsville, and even then he's been up here since 4th November last year and the first evidence of a reaction came after his third attendance at doggy daycare, which was about two weeks ago. He went on a Thursday, was fine, went the following Tuesday, was fine, and then the second Thursday, or third day he'd been there, I picked him up and he looked ragged. I thought he was dirty and had been mouthing other dogs, so I washed him that evening but he still looked rough. I thought he may have been scratched badly or scuffed by rough play and still didn't realise that what was happening was a major hive breakout under his fur. It was actually the groomer at dog daycare who approached me and said 'about that allergic reaction...' and asked me if I'd given him a flea control spot-on, because they can cause such reactions. It was the first I'd even thought about allergies so I took him to the vet. Once he was shaved it became evident just how bad it was - which was pretty severe. I've never given him a flea spot-on, so it couldn't have been that. Now I'm wondering if it's pollen, certain grass seeds, or what the hell else it might be. I can ask the vet about allergy testing - I have pet insurance (thankfully) so I can go the extra mile on this and push them to refer me on if it's not clearing up. I don't understand much about allergies in dogs - haven't done my reading yet. I don't know if it's common or uncommon for no allergies to show through puppyhood and puberty and suddenly appear out of nowhere near adulthood. All I know is the appearance of what appears to be a hotspot on his foot last night made my eyebrows retreat up into my hairline...

The vet's feedback appeared to be 'clear it up first and then we'll come to that'. He's had a skin scraping which was negative for more sinister underlying reasons. I'm not sure how effective allergy testing in dogs is, given there is such a broad range of potential allergens (especially up here?) I've been racking my brains for changes, but seriously after moving from Victoria to Queensland, nothing's different and yet everything's different.

On this I will vaccinate my dog yearly because we travel a bit and up to date vaccs are important to travel arrangements. I used to worm him once every three months, never heartworm treat and ever flea treat and never tick treat, because we were in Victoria and he never suffered mossie bites, fleas or ticks. Then we moved to Townsville. Since getting here, he's had a massive allergic reaction to something and we don't know what. A severe breakout of hives, two hotspots on his neck, he's been given corticosteroids and he's on three weeks of antibiotics. The hives were clearing up and I was delighted, but I think he got another hotspot last night on the top of a rear foot (and I always thought hotspots happened on or around the neck for some reason). We were just coming to the end of the corticosteroid course too. The ilium neocort cream is on the back foot and he's still working through his antibiotic course so there's not much else I can do. He's been pretty much on house arrest since his flare up, so I'm now wondering what environmental thing it is that's triggering him. I had thought fleas from another dog at daycare, but since he's been inside there are no fleas on him or my cats, unless he picked one up out in the yard (clay soil, damp, wet at the moment - likelihood?) Basically as soon as his antibiotics are over, he'll be on Panoramis once a month (all-wormer with flea and tick preventention capabilities), daily antihistamines during the wet season and reactive neocort if he flares up. Not happy, Jan.

I hope it's comfy under your bridge. :) I see they've caught Melbourne's wandering goat, so you probably won't be woken up any time soon...

My six cats also have a great life, rolling around in my garden and sharpening their claws on the tree. They pester the geckos and chomp grasshoppers. They stalk the birds but are unsuccessful because there is only one tree, the birds stay in the uppermost branches and the mynah birds sound the alert every time the cats move. They have the wind in their fur and the sun on their wee faces. And because of a combination of oscillot fence-proofing plus inclined bird netting with cheap L-brackets, they will hopefully never die from being laminated across the tarmac by a car, or torn apart by someone's dog. They'll never get kicked or punched by a passing stranger, or pick up poison bait on their travels. They'll also never scratch my neighbours' cars, piss and crap in their flower beds, spray piss on their front or back doors, wind their dogs up, fight and scream in the small hours of the morning or contract FIV, FeLV, herpes, chlamydia or any of the other wandering-cat diseases. It's not a hard mindset shift to make, but I find it usually needs the death of, or injury to, a pet to give some people the kick in the ass they need to make the shift.

Thankfully I have never yet been in this position. My dog is a mid-sized dog, in the 25-30kg range, but lanky. He has approached a woman walking a smaller dog once, in an off-leash area (we were on a deserted beach - I took my eye off my dog, who was by my side, for a minute to put something in my bag. I didn't realise there was an access path to the beach behind the dunes and basically a woman and her two dogs - one collie, one SWF - came onto the beach and my dog went over to them). He didn't attack and he didn't charge, but he did give her a fright I think just by the potential of bigger dog/smaller dog. One tactic I've tried with success when approached by a stiff and posturing dog, with mine on-leash, is to position myself between my dog and the approaching dog and be 'menacing' at it - draw self up to full height, lean forward, make eye contact and use a stern, loud voice to order the other dog away. They usually veer off and try heading around behind. It's not ideal, but up to now it's taken the 'speed' out of their approach and diffused the situation somewhat. However if rushed by two or more dogs I think I'd have to drop his leash and work on putting myself between him and them (though he'd probably bloody run around me and charge up to them).

It wouldn't surprise me if the pup wasn't really six months old, but still. Some dogs have extremely 'strong personalities' from a young age - high prey drive, strong resource guarding, very highly strung animals. If the dog was never socialised with children, it just wouldn't recognise a child as a 'person', just as another living thing smaller than it that's annoying it and needs to be warned off. This is total speculation of course, but if the dog grabbed the girl by a ponytail and shook hard, the way a dog like that could regardless of its age, he could have managed to scalp her. It wouldn't have had to be a sustained attack where he was gnawing on her for ages. As for 'where were the parents' - more and more in the news I see dog attacks on children and I hear speculation by dog-supporters that portrays children as tiny experimenting nazi canine-torturers, guaranteed to deliberately try to injure or harm a dog for their own entertainment, and the dog is portrayed as an innocent that was merely trying to defend itself. This, to me, does dogs just as much of a disservice as breed sterotyping. Dogs don't 'get' children. The legal speaker at the Melbourne anti-BSL rally last year even touched on it in his speech. To a dog, a child looks, acts and sounds completely different to an adult human. I totally agree with megan - dog attacks happen in nanoseconds. Other than completely separating your dog and your child, it's unrealistic to think that just because you're standing four feet away and watching, your child won't end up on the receiving end of a set of teeth. You need to be a good reader of canine body language - and most owners aren't. I saw a video at a friend's house recently - she was going through a list of old Christmas vids and things and found an old video taken a few years previously. At the time, she had a 2 year old son and her two brothers were lodging with her. She left her son in the care of the brothers (young men in their early 20s) and went to the supermarket. While she was out, the boys took a video of their nephew. The family dog entered the living room. The dog is a 40+ kg irish wolfhound cross mastiff, a speyed bitch, about three years old at the time of the video. While they film, and one of them is holding and patting the dog, the little boy knots his fists in her fur (he's not tugging, just exploring what she feels like), looks into her mouth and then tries to lift one of her back feet off the ground. The boys are watching as closely as any adult would - they're reassuring the dog, patting her, and it's all a sweet scene of discovery. As an inexperienced but keen student of canine body language, I was open-mouthed at the video and began to talk my friend through it. Her dog was licking her lips and turning her head away from the child. She tried to walk away a couple of times, but of course one of the brothers had her by the collar, thinking he was protecting the child and not realising he was actually stressing the dog out. She was lifting her front feet and turning away. She wouldn't make eye contact and was blinking slowly and licking her lips and nose a lot. She yawned frequently. Her ears were back and slick against her head. The dog was extremely stressed out by the entire exchange - she didn't want to be touched or poked by the child and when he went to lift her foot she tried to dance away from him (and was finally let go and she cleared off out of there - more because the chap with her collar couldn't hold her 40kg+ frame when she decided she'd had enough). To the young men, she looked like a patient and long-suffering dog, putting up with a child - they didn't understand her repeated signals that she was unhappy and wanted to go. The only signals they would have recognised would have been bared teeth or growling, neither of which she did - but then if she had gone straight from that prolonged signalling to a snap or bite, they would have been astonished and it may have been one of those 'attacks with no warning'. Plus if someone asked them 'why was the child unsupervised', the answer was that he wasn't unsupervised - the people supervising him just didn't understand what they were watching.

I would have thought it was CCTV, but apparently my tinfoil hat isn't working because you've now convinced me it was an effort to win money on a home video show.

I don't let my cats roam. The neighbours saw me putting up the oscillot fencing and were all 'oh don't worry, we have a cat here' - I didn't want to tell them I have six cats who would cause a massive nuisance if I let them out. Currently I have the oscillot fencing plus inclined bird netting just below it because our fences are timber and crap (rental property) and we have the 'ugly' side so there are lots of cross-pieces for the cats to hang onto. I have a pain in my face trying to cat-proof my fences - but the solution is to only allow the cats in the yard supervised and otherwise keep them in the house. Given my fencing has cost over $3,500, my intention is to never let my cats wander and I make an enormous effort to ensure they don't, if one of my cats were to escape in spite of my best efforts and a neighbour were to opportunistically trap and kill my cat, I think I'd probably trap and kill my neighbour.

Thought I'd throw this out there and see what comes up. I have a mongrel dog who will be 21 months old on 1st February. He's some sort of bull breed mix with a dose of something lanky in there too - he's registered as a bull arab X but honestly could be just about anything. Much as I know the history around many breeds and I've read up on my BSL and animal welfare stuff, he's the first dog I've owned since I was small child. Gus has always been a sweet natured creature - he's friendly to visitors, hardly barks, can be full on with other dogs but is also very playful and has never been in a fight. He has reasonable basic obedience, but it was difficult to achieve because I have little experience and he's a stubborn dog and is also not food motivated when he's distracted. (I discovered he is rubber-ball motivated when distracted - ACE!) Last weekend there were two incidents that threw me somewhat. First, someone visited the house with a child of around 9 years. Gus was outdoors and at one point was allowed into the house (where he is commonly allowed) and he came to great the guests. The child backed up onto her chair away from him but he greeted her with sniffs and wags. He loves to lick and went to lick her and she tried to climb onto her chair. His reaction was to step backwards and bark at her (and Gus virtually never barks). It wasn't like a play bark, more like a sort of admonishment as if he was telling her to stay put. His tail stayed wagging but I felt his mouth tightened up somewhat (panting stopped). I gave her a packet of treats and supervised her giving treats to the dog - making him sit and take a treat gently, and all was good with her and with him. Later that same morning Gus was given two pieces of beef cheek and one of the cats came to investigate what he had. Gus has never shown any food aggression whatsoever, but he stripped his teeth at the cat and then went for her (probably with not much seriousness - more a warning shot but I let a shout as he was moving because I saw him and he took off in a different direction). The morning was a reminder to me - a kick up the arse to make sure I reinforce the dog's desirable behaviour and also not to put him in positions where he may react. I don't mean never let him near visitors, I mean don't feed him high value food like beef cheeks near the cats, who will butt into his bowl. Anyway - the point of this thread was I had to sit down on Sunday and think about my own reactions to the weekend's incidents. Because of my inexperience owning a living breathing dog I needed to modify my expectations and dial back on the "horror" that my dog would do two such things - barking at a child and stripping his teeth and jumping at one of my cats. I thought to myself, a dog that defends his dinner, and barks at a child who's behaving strangely when he has never been socialised properly with children? Of course he might do these things - he's a DOG. I was reminded of the famous quote from dog owners whose animal has bitten someone 'Oh he never did anything like that before, he's normally such a sweet dog!' and had to kick myself in the arse over it. I think I may have bought into the sort of modern broadcast thinking about dogs - this idea that a dog gets one chance and it's then euthanised if it shows any aggression, regardless of the justification for its reaction. Also the notion of 'good behaviour' and 'bad behaviour' and how, somewhere in the middle of it, society has forgotten how to let a dog just be a dog. Thoughts, anyone? There are probably a bunch of far more experienced folk on here who think I'm nuts.

I don't like the article. I think the writer was trying to tackle the whole subject of people believing their dog would do no wrong by giving a scientific explanation for it through the release of oxytocin clouding their judgement. Badly.

Yeah I'm pretty sure they're mossie bites. Small raised red bumps mostly, in an uneven pattern, and as they heal some of them sort of scab over finely. Plus they've made a bee-line for his least-covered bits, poor lad - further up his chest where he has a covering of fur he has no bites. I'll get the vet to take a look though. It doesn't look like a skin allergy or reaction - it's not a rash. If it wasn't mossie bites I'd be more tempted to describe it as being like half healed chicken pox than anything else (but no blisters). He came up with what I thought was a hot spot on one shoulder and I was worried it would be hugely irritating, but it's healing almost as quickly as it's appeared. I went out into the yard on the damp grass the other morning in thongs and stood there for about three or four minutes playing with one of the cats and came in with three mosquito bites on my feet, so they're definitely living it up in our yard. I think he stands on the grass and they just come up out of it and land on him. For the sake of my poor over-strained pocket I'm going to keep it to the test at the second vet (since rang a third who were also very expensive) and the year's tablets online for under $100 all up and just ask about the bites while he's having blood taken. Otherwise he's happy out - loves the heat and sunbathes (have to put zinc on his nose). Apparently central Vic isn't your friend when you've a bull terrier coat!

Good GOD! Just called a second vet, <6 mins away: No consult fee Injection $97 Heartworm test $65 - I asked if I opted not to have the jab and just came in for a test would there be a consult fee - no, she said, just the $65. So with one phonecall, even if I don't have the jab, I've already saved myself $59... That's scary.

Thanks all for the input. Called the closest vet to me (<5 mins away). Consult: $58, heartworm test (which they recommend) $66, plus apparently they can give a heartworm injection that'll last the full year which'll cost $133. Debating whether to go for the jab - at the moment I worm Gus for intestinal worms every three months. I keep a close eye for worms and for fleas - again having a dog with an extremely short coat (single coat with hairs <1 inch long) nothing hides successfully for long. I can buy a generic ivermectin-based heartguard treatment (Nuheart) online for $32 for 12 tablets which is the annual dose covered. Can't see why I'd pay an extra $101 for protection for the same period... Time to find another price from another vet for comparison (though I'm always a sucker for opting for the closest vet to me).

Okay so am finally settled in Townsville (after relocating from central Victoria). We're here eight weeks, and I've noticed two things: first is Gus is getting bitten to bits by mossies. His undercarriage is nearly bald and he's covered in bites up inside his back legs, around his penis and up to his belly. He sleeps indoors at night and we have fly screens, so any bites he's getting are during time outdoors to pee in the evenings, or on walks. Problem is he has to be walked around dawn and dusk because it's too hot otherwise. I don't think I ever saw a single mosquito bite on him in Vic - we were lucky to be reasonably far from any water source and bites were a rarity, even for me. Anyway - I was vaguely aware of the mosquito-heartworm connection, and when worming him the other day I checked the product and discovered it's not effective for heartworm. Okay so questions - how quickly would the dog develop a heartworm load? How common is it? I see Milbemax treats heartworm but it has a big caveat saying not to use it without having the dog pre-tested at the vet. Am a bit strapped for cash after relocating (no job yet) and really could do without dropping up to a hundred bucks (yeah as ever just a squeak shy of my pet insurance excess) to have the dog tested at the vet if he really doesn't need to be... So what do you lot in heart-worm territory do? What's the most cost-effective preventative and how often do I give it? And is there a good mosquito-repellent for dogs?