labadore

I understand it could be a sensitive issue for people to write about. However, I was only referring to the posters who had taken the time to express empathy for the guy in this thread without expressing any sympathy for the poor dog. which if this is a forum of dog lovers as you put it, I thought that would be a normal thing to do in a thread like this and have seen this done in many other threads, so why not this one.

Really? So you believe he did it on purpose, and that he had no feelings toward the dog?? It would be helpful if you could quote who posted that so they could respond as I have no idea without going through the whole thread who posted that, thanks :)

Why does everything have to be spelled out? It's a dog forum full of dog lovers so it's safe to assume people DO feel bad about the dog without it having to be spoon fed to you. I also feel bad for Guide Dogs Australia but didnt feel it was necessary to spell that out either. Really "It's a dog forum full of dog lovers so it's safe to assume people DO feel bad about the dog without it having to be spoon fed to you" - interesting you should say that cause I sure don't assume how people feel without actually articulating it in a thread and from what I have read on this forum, I certainly don't feel it is a forum full of dog lovers

It is interesting that so many posters in this thread express empathy and sympathy for the person who caused this poor dog's death , but don't express any sympathy for the poor dog that died a horrendous and painful death We have been called nutters and nasty for having no empathy or sympathy for this guy, but come on this guy's negligence caused the horrendous and painful death of a valuable service dog who had so much to offer the community . Working with service dogs carries a high responsibility and accountability and if you stuff up, you pay the price. Unfortunately for this poor dog, the handler/carer's stuff up cost this dog its life in a most horrendous way. I hope this person finds this thread and reads it. He needs to be held accountable for his negligence, plain and simple. There can be no extenuating circumstances that would excuse him from leaving a dog in the car with the very high temperatures on that day.

I was just amending my post as you replied

In the workplace, there are terms and conditions of an employment contract that if breached are sackable offences (i.e. stealing from an employer, divulging confidential/sensitive information etc), regardless of the employees work record, so I would have thought that causing the death of a service dog in a dog related industry through negligence by the handler/carer would result in instant dismissal regardless of the handlers/carers word record. ETA - If causing the death of a service dog through negligence is not considered as grounds for instant dismissal as part of the handlers/carer employment terms and conditions, then it darn well should be - seriously what is a more serious breach of employment than causing the death of a service dog through negligence.

I too cannot believe how off topic this thread has gone . Thanks to the above posters for bringing it back on topic. I will reiterate, this guy's negligence caused a service dog who had the potential to do so much great work to die an agonising, horrendous and cruel death . He needs to be held accountable for this negligence. He failed in his duty of care to this poor dog, she lost her life in the worst possible way. He needs to lose his job and should never be allowed to work with dogs again as he cannot be trusted, one memory lapse in this type of role is one too many and in this case proved fatal Working with service dogs carries a much higher responsibility and accountability than owning a pet dog does and this job is only suitable for a select few. These dogs perform valuable community services and the handlers/carers are entrusted with the duty of care for these special dogs. Changing the types of vehicles these dogs are transported in as one poster has suggested and implementing more rigorous procedures for their transport can only go so far in ensuring the safety of these dogs, as ultimately, their safety is in the hands of their handler/carer who is responsible for performing their duty of care to these special dogs. This guy was in breach of his duty of care to Collete, his negligence caused her horrific death. He didn't leave her in the car at home or some other place, he left her in the car at his work place, his mind obviously wasn't on his job and he has proven he is not capable of performing the duty of care required for working with service dogs and he he needs to lose his job.

Totally agree, no second chances, a dog lost its life in a truly horrific way . I wish people would stop making excuses for this guy's negligence.

Thank goodness for our justice system, while not perfect some people (as shown in this thread) would hang people on a sniff that they did something wrong. Judge, jury and executioner! And as for making the comparison to nurses making error, who wouldn't have sympathy for a nurse who made an error that cost someone their life. Probably harder on themselves than anybody could be. Hmmmm our justice system, what a joke that is. Perpetrators of the crimes seems to have more rights and decisions/viewpoints going in their favour than the poor victims. Lack of accountability and every excuse under the sun being trotted out to defend the perpetrators actions . How about standing up for the victims more, screaming out for justice for THEM instead!! This innocent victim doesn't have a voice, she doesn't have a life anymore, thanks to the negligence of her carer. I for one will not stand idly by and try and excuse this person's negligence by blaming it on some form of memory lapse/forgetfulness . Lets not forget this poor dog DIED in the most HORRIBLE of circumstances This dog was going to provide a very valuable service and be the eyes for a poor blind/seeing impaired person. Ok, so what would you like to happen to the guy who has probably spent a lot of time helping blind people? And instead not standing idly by, what are you going to do? At the very least this person should lose their job and should not be allowed to ever work with dogs as he cannot be trusted to fulfill his duty of care to them . I have been a longtime supporter of guide dogs and will be rethinking this support if this person does not lose their job/role over this incident and if appropriate measures are not taken to prevent a similar situation from happening. I will be doing what I can to find out more about this incident and am seriously contemplating a social media campaign to draw attention to this incident and other similar incidents in an effort to bring some focus on the plight of service dogs losing their lives due to the their handlers negligence/failing to fulfil their duty of care What are you serious! If you calm down and relax then we should all be able to see that the fault is actually due to the type of transport. Quite clearly, a regulation needs to be introduced for the procurement and utilisation of special transport vehicles so that this type of tragedy cannot occur again. Are you serious - you think a different vehicle would have protected this dog from this person's negligence this person's negligence killed this poor dog, he left the dog in the car in extremely hot conditions, the dog died a terrible and painful death. This person needs to be held accountable, this person needs to lose their job and the Guide Dog Association needs to have much more rigorous procedures for the safe transporting of their dogs and hiring more responsible people to take care of these special dogs. So no I don't plan on calming down anytime soon over this senseless, cruel and totally preventable death of a valuable guide dog.

They would have had policy/processes in place, but obviously not rigorous enough to prevent this tragedy. The person who was responsible for the death of this poor dog was a "senior" colleague, so should have known better as would have had much more experience than a more junior employee/carer and when a dog in their care loses its life to their negligence, to me there can be no other outcome, but for them to lose their job. Apart from the fact that this person would have lost the trust and respect of his colleagues and the organisation, how could this person properly function with the guilt they would be carrying over causing such a horrible death of this poor dog . Employees in the general workplace can lose their jobs over what could be considered "trivial" breaches of their employment, so why should this person who caused the death of this dog, not lose their job.

Thank goodness for our justice system, while not perfect some people (as shown in this thread) would hang people on a sniff that they did something wrong. Judge, jury and executioner! And as for making the comparison to nurses making error, who wouldn't have sympathy for a nurse who made an error that cost someone their life. Probably harder on themselves than anybody could be. Hmmmm our justice system, what a joke that is. Perpetrators of the crimes seems to have more rights and decisions/viewpoints going in their favour than the poor victims. Lack of accountability and every excuse under the sun being trotted out to defend the perpetrators actions . How about standing up for the victims more, screaming out for justice for THEM instead!! This innocent victim doesn't have a voice, she doesn't have a life anymore, thanks to the negligence of her carer. I for one will not stand idly by and try and excuse this person's negligence by blaming it on some form of memory lapse/forgetfulness . Lets not forget this poor dog DIED in the most HORRIBLE of circumstances This dog was going to provide a very valuable service and be the eyes for a poor blind/seeing impaired person. Ok, so what would you like to happen to the guy who has probably spent a lot of time helping blind people? And instead not standing idly by, what are you going to do? At the very least this person should lose their job and should not be allowed to ever work with dogs as he cannot be trusted to fulfill his duty of care to them . I have been a longtime supporter of guide dogs and will be rethinking this support if this person does not lose their job/role over this incident and if appropriate measures are not taken to prevent a similar situation from happening. I will be doing what I can to find out more about this incident and am seriously contemplating a social media campaign to draw attention to this incident and other similar incidents in an effort to bring some focus on the plight of service dogs losing their lives due to the their handlers negligence/failing to fulfil their duty of care

Thank goodness for our justice system, while not perfect some people (as shown in this thread) would hang people on a sniff that they did something wrong. Judge, jury and executioner! And as for making the comparison to nurses making error, who wouldn't have sympathy for a nurse who made an error that cost someone their life. Probably harder on themselves than anybody could be. Hmmmm our justice system, what a joke that is. Perpetrators of the crimes seems to have more rights and decisions/viewpoints going in their favour than the poor victims. Lack of accountability and every excuse under the sun being trotted out to defend the perpetrators actions . How about standing up for the victims more, screaming out for justice for THEM instead!! This innocent victim doesn't have a voice, she doesn't have a life anymore, thanks to the negligence of her carer. I for one will not stand idly by and try and excuse this person's negligence by blaming it on some form of memory lapse/forgetfulness . Lets not forget this poor dog DIED in the most HORRIBLE of circumstances This dog was going to provide a very valuable service and be the eyes for a poor blind/seeing impaired person.

I would expect a higher standard of care in a "dog centred industry". Look at the outrage (and rightly so) expressed in thread at the terrible death of poor Buddy at the grooming salon due to the negligence of the grooming salon. Yet here in this thread, there appears to be more sympathy for the carer than the poor dog. Really this cannot be compared to what happened to Buddy, he was deliberately left on that grooming table and the groomer walked away knowing he was there and surely knowing what could happen to him! REally - they are both cases of negligence where in both cases people failed in their duty of care and as a result, two beautiful dogs died horrendous deaths.

I would expect a higher standard of care in a "dog centred industry". Look at the outrage (and rightly so) expressed in thread at the terrible death of poor Buddy at the grooming salon due to the negligence of the grooming salon. Yet here in this thread, there appears to be more sympathy for the carer than the poor dog.

Hmmmm nutters because we care that this beautiful poor dog lost its life due to the negligence of its carer - well then happy to be called a nutter. :D I am sick of bleeding hearts that think we all need to have sympathy and compassion for our fellow human beings that fail miserably and cause the suffering and horrible death of either animals or humans. How about people being made to be accountable for some of their stupid decisions that cause preventable pain and suffering, instead of trying to excuse them. RIP sweet Colette, I am so sorry that you were let down in the worst possible way and lost your wonderful life and great potential in such tragic circumstances

My sympathy only lies with the poor dog who lost its life in the most horrendous way Your statement "he required counselling for heavens sake!!!!! I will match with "his negligence killed that poor dog for heavens sake!!!!" He is in a profession where memory lapses are not acceptable and can be deadly, just like other professions and that is why only certain people can be employed in those professions. This poor dog died a horrible death due to this guy's negligence and he should have to think about it every day of his life, at least he still has a life, the poor dog doesn't.

Gee, I think that's a bit harsh. Considering the staff member is undergoing counselling, I think he has suffered enough. He will most likely not be allowed to handle dogs in the near future, until can be found trusted again. For someone who is in that line of business, imagine how awful he'd feel no, not harsh at all. Totally reasonable. A child care worker who lets a child die due to negligence will not be allowed to work with children again. However bad he might feel, it can't be worse than what the dog went through. Totally agree Shocking pure and simple and I hope this guy loses his job and is NEVER allowed to ever work with guide dogs or any dogs for that matter, ever again . He had a duty of care to this dog and he failed in the worst possible way and that poor beautiful dog lost it's life in the most tragic way and I fail to understand how he forgot about this dog, particularly in light of this part of the story: He was working at the association's offices, it wasn't like he had driven home or elsewhere and forgot the dog was in the car, he was actually at work, how can he have forgotten he had the poor dog in the car . Completely unforgivable and whatever happens to him will be nothing compared to what happened to this poor dog Such a tragedy that a beautiful guide dog who had so much to offer could lose its life in such horrendous circumstances due to the negligence of the person who was entrusted with it's care. Service dog handlers/carers must be held more accountable for the dogs entrusted in their care, as these dogs are special dogs and it is their responsibility to ensure the dog's safety at all times, that is part of their job.

What a difference a day makes - early 20's most of the day, half of what they were yesterday and now below 20 So great to be able to take my boys out for outings and walks in pleasurable conditions this afternoon, even got caught in the rain with my youngster, but neither he nor me cared as he is in his element when any water is around and I think he was secretly hoping for heavier rain to make some nice big puddles for him to roll around in :laugh: It wasn't too heavy and was actually quite pleasant walking in the rain. Feel for you poor guys that didn't have aircon yesterday and for the train travellers that had to endure horrendous conditions and lengthy delays in the awful heat . Was great when the southerly finally blew in last night, was able to turn off the aircon and open doors and windows to let the lovely breeze in and it cooled things down pretty quickly. Thank god the extreme heat has gone and if weather forecasters are to be believed, it is gone for a long time, lets hope the forecast is correct:).

Feel for the train commuters as an hour's delay on most lines as heat has caused havoc with tracks and overhead lines - imagine being packed in like sardines in this heat today and the aircon on those trains would probably not cope very well in this extreme heat. I would not want to have to travel on a train today in Sydney/NSW, it would be unbearable. Can't wait for the change to blow through, they reckon around 8pm, so hopefully this change will happen as forecasted :)

Wow the heat in Sydney today is mind boggling with hottest day in Sydney on record 45.8 I live in North West Sydney and it got to 44 here and 46 in Penrith . Due to the extreme heat today I decided to work from home today so I could be home with my Lab boys in the aircon as my black lab boys would have struggled with the heat today, particularly my 14½ year old boy. Also my aircon in my car is not working and have booked it in for a service next week, so no way was I going to be driving my car in this heat today, I would have probably melted on the drive home :laugh: One of my staff just contacted me to ask if she could leave early today (4.30pm) as her husband was going to pick her up on his way home, otherwise she would have to walk to the station (about a 10min walk) in the extreme heat along with some of the other workers who went home earlier as apparently the office aircon struggled to work in the heat today. Even my home aircon is not functioning as good as it would nromally and I would say a lot of office/home aircons struggled to cope with this extreme heat. How did you and your poor dogs fare today in this extreme heat. It must have been extremely hard on outside dogs today When I let my boys out to the toilet a couple of times, it was like a furnace out there, when I opened the door the blast of heat was unbelievable and they were out and in very quickly. Even when I am not home, they have access to both inside and outside, but without aircon today, they would have really struggled.

How horrific I am so so sorry this happened to your beloved Buddy How could they just leave a dog on a table unattended and with a choker chain on, my god what is wrong with these people :mad . My heart goes out to you :hug: , it is an awful tragedy and my thoughts are with you . RIP Buddy , this just should not have happened

Sounds like a typical lab pup :laugh: and the ones that have to have something in their mouth constantly make the best retrievers. My last two lab boy pups had/have very strong retrieving instincts and their most favourite place to retrieve is in the water and they would have/will retrieve from the water till the cows come home, never missing a retrieve. I tired out before well before they did :laugh: . These two boys always had to have a toy or some object in their mouth as pups/youngsters and for my previous boy right throughout his life and I fostered their retrieving instincts from the day I brought them home. I try to take my youngster to the river as often as possible (we went again this morning) as he is probably my best all round totally reliable retriever, not only retrieves the object every single time, but brings it back to me every single time and has done since a pup. I play retrieving games with him everyday. Yes Lab pups do have gorgeous bums. Some of my favourite pics are shots from behind :laugh: Love the pics of your gorgeous boy and your breeder has done a great job breeding and raising a confident, outgoing, fearless pup Looking forward to more pics and stories of this adorable little guy. :)

Thanks everyone for your replies and suggestions. :) I do understand that the best outcome is to have the wound sutured which would need to be done under a GA, and this was discussed at length with the vets, but has to be last option as too risky for my boy at his age. The main thing is that it heals without problem and without risk to my boy and I am not concerned if the end result isn't a "beautiful" result. I will discuss with vet tomorrow as to whether the ears needs to be taped to his head and bandaged as he is not doing too badly at present i.e. not doing a lot of scratching, rubbing it along the carpet or shaking his head much and I am very vigilant in keeping it clean and luckily I am still on holiday till end of week, so can monitor him closely and he only goes outside to go to toilet and our walk at night. He has access to inside and outside when I am not home, but I really want to see more closing of the wound before I go back to work.

Has anybody had any experience with having a torn ear in an elderly dog treated and healed successfully without stitches. Because of my very senior boy's age (14.5 yrs old), it is just too risky to put him under a GA to have stitches and both vets he has been to since the attack on my beautiful Lab boy have advised that a GA for stitches would have to be the very last resort if the ear doesn't heal or gets infected. What is the average time for a ripped ear to heal without stitches and have any of you had problems with the ear not healing properly or not healing at all and had to revisit the vet for alternative treatment? I am taking my boy back to the vet on Tuesday for a checkup as it will be a week after the attack. As the attack happened on New Years day, my vet was closed, so I took him to another vet closeby that was open and we discussed at length what the options were we agreed that gluing the ear and stapling would be the best first option for my boy. The vet thoroughly cleaned the wound (I had already cleaned it up and applied Neocort cream to it before his appt)and scraped around the edge of wound to make it as fresh as possible to give best chance of healing. A numbing agent was applied, but Vet had to tread gently and stop and start according to my boy's tollerance as the scraping was being done with a scalpel and the numbing agent didn't block out all the pain. He was given 7 days of antiobiotics and painkillers and I had to monitor his ear daily. I had planned on taking him to vet the next day when they reopened anyway just to check all was ok and make sure this course of action was the best for my boy. The next morning I noticed that one of the staples was missing and the other one had moved and the wound had reopened My vet said that gluing and stapling was probably not the best treatment as the success rate is not very good. He shaved around the wound and then liberally applied some Otiderm - an ear cleaner and wound cleanser and gave me a bottle and I have to apply twice a day. He advised the wound will heal, but I need to be vigilant (which I am) about regularly checking the wound and to ensure he isn't exposed to flies and I can buy some fly repellent for his ear which I did. However, where I live there is hardly any flies and it is very rare for flies to be in my house, even in the heat of summer with back door open. The odd fly that does come in gets zapped pretty quickly :D Now for the story of his attack, it still upsets me greatly just thinking about it I quite often take my dogs to Crestwood Reserve in Baulkham Hills for a walk, especially in the warmer months it is quite a shady walking/hanging out place with lots of trees and as I have both a Lab youngster and senior, I take them separately. My senior boys just loves to amble around at a leisurely pace, sniffing all the delightful scents and sometimes during our walks, we will just sit down on one of the very grassy areas under a big tree and just chill out. During out walk, I noticed in a distance a guy with two GSD's and the large one was offlead in an onlead area so I purposely walked my boy around the perimeter of one of the kids playgrounds in the Reserve so that I didn't have to walk past this guy and be bothered by offlead dog. Just as we came back onto the pathway after walking around the perimeter, I heard running behind me and a kid calling sorry, sorry and before I even had a chance to torn around the large offlead GSD was alongside my boy and sniffing him. My boy wasn't phased by the dog and he seemed quite friendly and the kid was running to catchup with the dog followed by his parents with the onlead GSD. I told the guy that his dog should be onlead as this is an onlead area and he proceeded to tell me he was friendly, which he was, but that was besides the point. My boy was alongside me sniffing a tree with the big offlead GSD closeby and the owner was asking about my boy and he was starting to tell me about the other GSD, a female who was onlead because she wasn't good with other dogs and he had her on the other side of him and was standing to one side of the path and I was to the other side and keeping my distance and was just telling him we had to go and next minute his female GSD just launched a full on vicious attack on my boy, knocking him to the ground and doing a number on his ear. It was just so frightening, happened so fast, without any warning (no growling, no nothing) and caught the owner offguard and just about knocked him off his feet as she launched at my boy as we weren't standing too close to them. Blood everywhere, me crying, kid and wife and owner in shock and my boy's ear ripped open Owner managed to restrain his bitch pretty quickly before even more damage was done to my boy and was apologising profusely as I was walking away with my boy to the water to rinse his ear and assess the damage. As we were over at the water tap he came over without his dogs, think he rushed them to the car and was trying to apologise and I told him this would never have happened if his boy was onlead as I had purposely tried to avoid him when I noticed his boy off lead and even though his boy was friendly, with him being offlead he had the opportunity to come running over to my boy very quickly and from a distance and his owner had the put my boy in danger by coming over with his DA bitch on lead and that this bitch was dangerous and should not be in a park where there are lots of other dogs on lead with their owners and lots of kids as the Reserve has a couple of playground areas. I told him to go away and leave me be, so I could continue washing my boy's ear and get him home and organise vet appt. I was too upset and concerned about my boy to get his details, which I know obviously could kick myself for, but my priority was to assess the ear damage and get my boy out of there fast. Luckily my old boy is a pretty tough old guy and it happened too fast for him to react and I was able to walk him back to the car on the other side of the park. I am going to visit this Reserve a few times by myself to see if I can find this guy and his dogs and get his details (pic) as I want to report this to Council. I don't want the dog destroyed, but I want her declared dangerous and be forced to wear a muzzle in public and make sure this guy has both dogs onlead at all times and to think twice where he walks them Interestingly enough since the attack I have been walking my boy quite late at night, mainly for heat, avoiding other dogs and to also avoid flies (only takes one) and I have come across a number of GSD owners walking their dogs at this time, probably for the same reasons as me, but I now cross the road when I see one. I am now scared of GSD's as this bitch was truly vicious and scary and the noise she made when attacking my boy still haunts me Hopefully over time, my fear of GSD'S will go away as I have always tried to not blame the breed and my youngster has played with a number of GSDs in various dog parks over the years, but this bitch was truly frightening and it will take some time for me to get over this attack. I am so emotional about this attack as it was totally unprovoked, very vicious and my boy is very senior and at his age, every day is precious.

Gorgeous Lab puppies Sam is such a beautiful little man and I am sure his new owners will be as devoted to him as he will be to them. Looking forward to seeing this gorgeous boy's development with lots of pics of course :D Well bred Labs stand out in the crowd and with Labs being so popular, unfortunately there are lots of poorly bred labs being bred by byb's and puppyfarmer, so when the general public do see a beautifully bred lab one of the most popular questions they ask, is he a Lab/is he a pure bred Lab? :D My 3 year old black lab youngster is from a very well renowned Lab breeder who has been breeding and showing labs for many years and from the time I have taken my boy out in public as a pup to this very day, hardly a day goes by that I haven't received compliments or questions on my boy's appearance and asking me where I got him from. He has developed beautifully and is still intact and is in great condition, solid as a brick, muscular, beautiful large masculine head and guys in particular always compliment him on his body structure and gorgeous head and tell me what an impressive/awesome/stunning/beautiful dog he is and how nice it is to see such a beautifully bred Lab in such great condition. The other day, during our walk, I ran into a guy with two small/medium dogs and our dogs were meeting and greeting each other and the guy asked me if my boy was a pure bred Labrador and I told him yes he is and we got chatting as he was patting and fawning over my boy and he said, I have always loved Labs, but I have never seen such an impressive looking Labrador and he asked me where I got him from and asked all about his breeder and was genuinely interested and said when he goes home he will do some internet research on my boy's breeder. He said the small dogs with him were actually his wife's who normally comes on walks with them, but she is home sick at the moment and he said he hoped that when his wife had recovered and was out walking with him and the dogs that they run into us again, so he can show his wife this very impressive Lab that has set the benchmark for the Lab that they hope to get sometime n 2013. I have owned a few labs over quite a few years so am quite used to people/kids stopping to pat my Labs/talk about them, let their dogs meet and greet mine etc, but my 3 year old youngster gets so much attention and so many compliments during our outings that I think I have spoken to more people about Labs in his 3 short years than with any of my other Labs over their lifetimes :laugh: Enjoy your beautiful new baby as that puppy time is so short. He will bring much love, fun, laughter and I am sure some mayhem to your household. :) but you could not have asked for a more devoted and fantastic companion, Labs are the best