SpotTheDog

I completely understand where you're coming from on the 'define a puppy farm' debate, however I wanted to put this forward. Ireland is puppy farming Mecca. If you want to raise hundreds of dogs in sub-standard conditions - the sort of 'puppy farm' most of the public think about, with rows upon rows of stacked wire cages, matted fur, untreated infections, left in urine and faeces for days, never allowed out except to mate, so on - you set yourself up in Ireland. If you want to make a fortune selling crossbeed small white fluffies, 'teacup' breeds and so on, you set yourself up in Ireland. If you want to do most of your puppy transactions in cash in carparks behind supermarkets, and hand over a six week old puppy in a blanket and say it's vaccinated but you lost the vaccine card, and you'll forward its pedigree papers - you set yourself up in Ireland. You set yourself up in Ireland (where the animal welfare laws are almost 100 years old and aren't enforced), you advertise your puppies on donedeal.ie and in the free papers, and you fight the rising tide of education (Ireland has a large bulletin board community that itself has an Animals & Pets forum, and the folks on that forum have a checklist as long as your arm on how not to buy a puppy) by answering a few questions the right way. It's not uncommon in Ireland for puppy farmers [for a given value of 'puppy farmer' meaning an unscrupulous conveyor-belt breeder who is breeding non-health-checked dogs in substandard conditions to produce mongrel puppies and call them hybrid names and is in it all purely for the profit] to place breeding bitches in a suburban home for two weeks before the pups are due to be sold - they move her to suburbia, put a heat lamp and a bale of fresh hay out in the shed and allow people who've been told 'ask to see the mother' to come visit the surburban house where they think 'oh sure, no rows of cages, the shed looks clean, yes this isn't a puppy farm' and away they go with a few hundred euro worth of a genetic timebomb that'll break their hearts. I have also read and been told that Ireland is supplying much of the small-white-fluffy-teacup demand in Europe from its puppy farms - but I need to google the sources of that information (though I am inclined to believe it). On the basis that legislation needs to start somewhere, the newly introduced legislation in Ireland is as good a first step as any.

With cats, I'd like to see a far greater onus on restricting their roaming. Your cat doesn't have to be indoor-only - it can have access to the garden if you cat-proof your fence. You can raise an extremely happy cat in this way. Common myths (and I've been involved in cat rescue) I encounter are: I can't keep it indoors, that would be cruel. Most cats learn to deal with the road. I should let it have one litter before it's desexed. It's only just had a litter, it couldn't be pregnant again. She's too young to be pregnant (we've seen well-fed females come into their first season at 16 weeks, thereby having their first litter at six months). By far and away the most irritating is stuff like 'dogs have owners, cats have staff' or 'cats are unfriendly' or 'a cat will desert you for the neighbours in a second' or 'I don't have to feed it while I go on holidays, they can hunt' and so on. The biggest difference between cats and dogs is dogs are an amplifier and cats are a mirror. Whatever you put into a dog, he'll return ten fold. Whatever you put into a cat, he will return in absolutely equal measure. If you ignore your cat, he will ignore you. If you allow him to roam all day, he will indeed move in with the neighbour, a little old lady who watches telly with him beside her on the couch and hand feeds him tidbits. Cat body language is extremely subtle, but if you learn a bit about it you'll soon learn you can read moods, emotions, mischeviousness, moodiness and willingness to play, all in the angle of an ear and the position of a tail. I wish people would take better care of their cats. They are such a rewarding pet if you just take the time to learn what to do.

Two dog attacks in two days in the Age - one a toddler bitten by the family's malamute, the second a child on a swing bitten by the family's Staffie. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/second-child-mauled-by-pet-dog-20111014-1lnsq.html Deary me, I thought this new legislation was changing everything? I thought it was solving the 'dog bite problem'?

Nope, I know it's not the OP, I was writing as a direct response to the idiot the OP is quoting. Actually I was ranting. LOTS of ranting. /has her rantpants on.

Dear John Bryson Shove your ID card up your jacksie. Yours Owner of a sweet natured crossbreed of uncertain parentage that doesn't deserve to be destroyed under arbitrary legislation.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND, rant over. I'm going to get a stiff drink.

Did you know both of these dogs are restricted breeds in other countries? I look forward to seeing you with your dog leashed and muzzled in public in a few years. So it really doesn't matter what the breed of dog is then, does it? Personally I feel worse about the collateral damage that will be the people who continue to be killed and maimed by badly controlled dogs of all shapes and sizes whose behaviour will continue while the wardens and the government spend their time and our money addressing the wrong end of the leash. If you're that worried about the choice you're going to make that will put your dogs in a position to hurt someone, why don't you euthanise them right now and sleep easy from here on out? It's a long time since I've read an argument that contradicts itself so thoroughly as yours - that's impressive, well done.

And Confucious say, he who go to bed with itchy arse wake up with smelly finger. Unless you adopted your dog of unknown parentage as a puppy from a pound or rescue with no knowledge of what the dog would look like as an adult. In that case the only choice you made was to own a dog. This is correct. This is not correct. We may have to have a serious discussion about the difference between fact and hearsay. You might want to delve some into the contribution of the media to dog attack hysteria too. PS: again with the request for statistics please? I would rather be attacked by a small dog than a large dog. I'd also rather be tickled with a feather than hit by a truck. Your point is? How about responsible owners of non-restricted breed dogs who will have their pets seized and classified as restricted because of appearance and who will then lose their pets under this new legislation? I'm beginning to think you really don't understand the ins and outs of this, do you. AHA! So you're actually discriminating against PEOPLE and dogs. That makes it ALL better.

God help me, but... So they're not destroyed dogs based on what they look like, but they're destroying them based on the breed they look like? Genius. And if you have a mongrel dog which you have registered as a mongrel dog, a warden can decide the dog is not correctly registered based solely on its appearance, not its breed, and can confiscate and euthanise that dog. Who's going to manage that risk? And over 20 years of breed discrimination in the UK has had no impact on the threat or potential threat to human life. Will it take you two decades to cop on to that as well? Indeed, people are not voting at all. The legislation has been passed without referendum. Undemocratic much? And people with mongrels of dubious parentage who are arbitrarily decided to be 'of type' will have their dogs seized based purely on appearance and not behaviour. They are looking to restrict four separate breeds, using legislation which was passed without referendum, which opens the gate to adding more selected breeds to the restrictions without referendum, and I would like to see, please, a number of reliable scientific studies and collated statistics to support your claim that any breed has a proven track record of being a threat to human life. This argument actually contradicts your initial argument of how appearance is the first step in identifying breed. Because if the breed doesn't have pitbull genetics in spite of its appearance, by your own logic it will be euthanised even though it's apparently not a danger to anyone. How interesting that you manage to identify something sensible in the midst of your drivel.

Agree with Erny above. Greytmate, I'm not laying blame for this at the foot of the ANKC or Staffy Club or anybody other than the politicans who responded hastily and with poor thought to the death of a child. What frustrates me at the moment is the apparent lack of a cohesive response. I tried to see if I could get The Australian interested in a feature that drew a parallel between Australia and the UK - because we do take a lot of our legislation from there. In the UK between 1989 and 1991 there were a couple of savage dog attacks on children. The UK passed the Dangerous Dogs Act. Initially the Act functioned very similarly to what we now have in Victoria - family pets 'of type' seized and euthanised. Six years later the UK repealed that part of the Act because it was so very unpopular. Now, 20 years later, DEFRA in the UK have conducted a public consultation on the Act. Their response is still to come, but generally the Act in the UK is felt to be hasty, poorly thought out and fairly useless because there is still a problem with antisocial behaviour in dogs. Coupled with the problem that the Act has apparently done little to address over two decades, there is the additional burden on the taxpayer of funding things like kennelling for dogs of alleged type while their owners fight to have them reclaimed (and also until they're euthanised) - which has cost in excess of AUD $6-7 million over the last decade (taking into account exchange rates). However, in spite of doing the research and providing an angle, newspaper articles, sections of legislation and scientific reports (as opposed to people's own personal websites), I haven't had a nibble. You know the way people cite the "Calgary Model" as a solution to all things? Well I've been up past midnight a number of nights reading the Calgary animal bylaws, and the Calgary local government's annual reports and I can tell you - the Calgary animal bylaws, while a major step in the right direction, also don't work to reduce bite statistics because of a number of other factors (insufficient laws to control dog breeding and Calgary becoming a dumping ground for dogs 'of type' because they're no longer illegal). So I've done a bit and am now lost at where to turn to do more or use what I've done. I still have the information and the time to offer anyone who's interested, but who do I offer it to? Against that backdrop, it yanks my chain massively when I read an attitude that appears to say 'Don't expect the pedigree societies, agencies or organisations to get involved with your problem with your feral mutts. This isn't their fault.' Breed specific legislation is everybody's problem. It's even a problem for people who don't own dogs - because even if you don't own a dog, your tax dollars go towards funding this pointless solution, your tax dollars go towards funding the health service that continues to treat people injured by dogs, and you still walk the streets going about your business and you and your kids are at the same risk from poorly controlled dogs that you were before the legislation was passed. You'll also fund the judicial system that gets tied up for days, weeks, months and even years as determined pet owners tramp through the courts trying to have their family pet released back to them - regardless of whether you believe the test cases are legitimate, they still cost money. Arguably, you, tax-paying non-dog-owning Joe Public, are at even greater risk walking the streets going forward, because people who own dogs 'of type' may become lax about socialising them and making them into well adjusted dogs because before every walk they think 'Do I really want to fight the good fight today, defend my dog to people who make comments and ignore the folks who cross the road to get away from me just because of how my dog looks?' And then they hang the lead back on the hook and think 'oh, maybe not today'. A dog like that gets out of its yard in a one-off incident and it can wreak havoc. So yes, while I understand that the current legislation is not the fault of any pure breed organisation, society or governing body, I am frustated that as yet, those bodies haven't come together to use their clout and their credibility as 'dog experts' to fight this legislation on all of the scientific and historical grounds on which it can be fought. There is massive potential to take an evidence-based approach to fighting this legislation.

The language throughout that article seeks to promote one breed as better, safer and more reliable than another. Positive discrimination is still discrimination. Reece Fry appears to think the misconception is that Staffies are as dangerous as Pit bulls, as opposed to the misconception being that specific breeds are dangerous and subsequently all animals of a specific breed should be treated universally. The sort of administration that can pass a law such as the one we're now living under - that administration doesn't have to stretch far to include other dogs. Sometimes I wonder if pure breed owners believe they're untouchable because of the popularity of their breeds and the money that goes into their dogs. The attacks that prompted the Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 in the UK were perpetrated by Rottweilers - yet Rottweilers were not named in the breed specific legislation that followed...

This is why I am wary of old english sheepdogs, who I shall from hereon refer to as LWFs.

I find it difficult to understand why someone would try to protect their breed by denigrating another breed. It just adds to the argument that BSL is somehow justified. It also leaves those of us who own unpapered rescue crossbreeds right up the creek without a paddle. Regardless of whether or not pitbulls are ANKC recognised, the ANKC need to recognise the potential for legislation to go against the larger guardian pure breeds - rottweilers, dobermans, german shepherds - once BSL has been passed in the first place. You don't have to be pro-pit to be anti-BSL.

Old English Sheepdogs in full coat. I think it's the lack of eye contact and the fact that body language disappears in a mass of hair. A mass of growling, bristling hair, in my limited experience and poor interactions with the breed. /edited to add the word 'interactions', because apparently my writing is also poor.

From the UK, who've had these laws for over 20 years: http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/blog/2011/sep/30/dangerous-dogs-law-legislation-debate

The legal loophole is literally the only chance and was probably always the only chance. I hoped, but never really thought that the judiciary would release Lennox. It's a huge ask to expect someone to gamble their career on the future behaviour of a dog that they were responsible for releasing back into the community. The sheer enormity of the politics around it meant Lennox would never get his chance really. The legal loophole would absolve the judiciary from responsibility for the dog - they could say 'It's not our fault, there was a loophole, a technicality'. I've been following this, and the case of Bruce before Lennox (Bruce was released into the care of East Galway Animal Rescue in the Irish Republic). All it does it make me wonder what I'd do if the wardens knocked on my door about my crossbreed mutt.

...gutted.

That makes me happy. I don't have a problem with mongrels. I have a problem with morons who deliberately breed mongrels, totally misrepresent 'hybrid vigour' and breed litter after litter of problem mutts when we kill a quarter of a million pets a year. I don't have a problem with pure bred dogs, bred by ethical breeders who have the future and health of the breed as their primary interest, who health test and raise their pups at home and under foot and blah blah blah ...I think I'm going to go and hide under the bed with a goonbag.

Does it really?? Is there somewhere that can be reported??

Heh raz, got there before you. Thought the better of it.

I actually feel like I've been sucker punched. Between Vic's BSL, feeling helpless because in spite of my efforts the media are having none of the information I've sent them to get them to think about the real issues, and now the PM getting an -oodle... I sat at a lunch for work yesterday and listened as the PA of a consultant wittered on about breeding her staffy with a blue boy and she making 'wrestler' style gurning muscle gestures to describe the size of the boy. I couldn't speak. I froze up. I suppose it's something that the girl beside me, who I've worked with for four years and talked to about 'pet stuff', knew exactly what was going on and tried to change the subject. It makes me so sad. /edited because I probably shouldn't swear.

Hah. You're more likely to cut your fingers off than manage to successfully aim for, hit and sever the carotid artery on a dog in the middle of a dogfight. Then when you've no fingers the attacking dog will probably bite you because you pissed it off. Or eat your severed fingers, omnomnom.

Thanks for that info. So with the definition of a puppy farm - the definition upheld by the RSPCA etc is a useful definition that came out of a working group involving the key stakeholders in the animal care world. I want to be clear on this - the problem then is not the 'official' definition of a puppy farm; you're saying the problem is public opinion and media pressure? Sorry if I'm not picking it up right - let me go back to the beginning. Has the definition of a puppy farm that came out of that meeting been accepted as a universal definition for use in Australian legislation? If it hasn't, can you tell me where the resistance to upholding the definition comes from (e.g. politics, ego, something else?) I understand that there are deep complexities around points of view about dog breeding. Some of the most staunchly pro-animal people in the nation will openly savage some of the most ethical and responsible dog breeders in the nation purely because the former believe the latter are "adding to the problem". With the Calgary model, I've read the bylaws and was very impressed by the clear and rational thinking behind them. However the results in the Calgary 2010 annual report don't uphold what I'd been led to believe about the model being a cure-all for dog attacks - which is how it's presented by many pro-pit factions. (And again in anything I'm trying to learn about and get others interested in, I'm steering away from focusing on pitbull terriers). I've been doing more to figure out why the model hasn't had the effects I've been told it had. Perhaps it did initially, but now there are other problems that need to be investigated and accounted for. (I need to find out if anyone's conducted an evaluation on the Calgary animal bylaws and implementation thereof.) Some problems apparently include that Calgary never dealt with laws around breeding, and by rescinding BSL they've left their region open to abuse from unscrupulous breeders of fighting dogs. The region has also allegedly become a dumping ground for fighting dogs from other regions where BSL is in force. Add a measure of public hearsay to those allegations, and you come up with a dangerous rumour mill about how the Calgary model is full of holes (which I don't believe - I do think it's the most progressive and effective animal control legislation we have to work with). It also lends grist to the pro-BSL mill, who can choose to ignore the really positive outcomes from Calgary and focus on the bad - a tendency that isn't exclusive to critics of that model.

Steve, do you have any links to anything I can read up on about how this process went? e.g. the date and time of the meeting, who chaired, who decided who would attend, who was due to run with the definitions and so on, and what happened next? If the RSPCA were holding the reins, did they drop them? Or was it the influence of the media yet again in policymaking, undoing the work you guys did by giving air time to the Animal Welfare Activists because of the potential pull of such an emotive story? (Government here, I have seen and heard from those within Departments, reacts strongly to the media - anything that has media coverage is on the minister's desk within minutes.) I ask because I've opened a right can of research worms myself. Prompted by how I feel about Victoria's rushed dangerous dog legislation, I spent a few pretty long nights reading and following links and trawling through archives and calling people from ages past and getting information about why the legislation as it stands on dangerous dogs won't make a difference. But of course, that sort of approach should always be balanced by what will make a difference. I'm very careful not to take the information and stances on personal web pages as God's own tears and that has involved me trudging through a lot of legislation from other jurisdictions. (The Calgary Model, for instance. I heard about it, I had views on it, I read about it from personal webpages, I had other views on it, and then I printed up the animal bylaws from Calgary and read them in tandem with Calgary's 2010 annual report, and now I have all SORTS of views on it.) What I am starting to realise is that animal welfare and control in this country cannot be tackled in bites. If we want to create a safe community for our pets and our children, if we want to prevent wilful animal cruelty and if we want to place a higher value on animals and our moral responsibility towards them as a society, we need to look at the whole pie. That pie starts with who breeds dogs and why and that ties in inextricably to how owners manage their pets and what powers our councils and rangers should have to protect our community and the place of our pets in the community. So that's where I'm coming from, and any info you have - links, PM, whatever would be most welcome. PS: Did I say I had a headache?