Her Majesty Dogmad

I've lost quite a lot of dogs over the last few years as I do rescue/adopt old dogs. When I get home from the vet after losing another one, a couple of my dogs sit with me the whole night which they don't normally dog, I just know they are supporting me in my time of need. They are very sensitive I find. Bless Maddie's sweet heart.

After having a conversation with the lady, she was not forthcoming with me when I asked what the reason for rehoming is - no wonder, I'm less than impressed. In fact I'm flabbergasted after what she was saying about how much she loved the dog. And people wonder why I don't like people very much ....

Thank you everyone - I've just spoken to the owner and she can get to Almerton so I will pm her details to Cockerlover. In the meantime, if anyone knows someone who'd love an 11 yr old Pembroke female corgi with all her work done, let me know!

Also get the best quality shampoo you can find such as Alloveen, somethign that will help with an itchy skin.

So sad that the poor cow did not get any help until you appeared and by then it was too late. RIP sweet girl and baby, sorry that you suffered and I'm sorry you had to go through it all Nic. Hugs to you. Some people shouldn't have animals.

Most important thing to know is that Frontline doesn't kill fleas but vets still sell it ... might still work on ticks I'm not sure. Get Capstar - give him a dose one day. Bath the dog. Wash all his bedding. Vacuum thoroughly - using flea powder on carpets, leave for 5 mins first. Next day more Capstar. 3rd day, use Advantage (fleas only) or Advocate (fleas, heartworm, intestinal worms, lice and mites). I would not use Comfortis personally (my friend's dogs had fits) or any other treatment that doesn't kill fleas outright. Use Advocate or Advantage every month. Re the rash on his stomach and elsewhere, have you got any Wandering Jew - I discovered a corner of my yard has a profuse outbreak and one of my dogs went chewing crazy. I washed him down with a wet cloth and he was better.

There is a purebred Pembroke Corgi (in Colo Vale nr Mittagong) who needs a home by 31st October. The owner doesn't have a digital camera and cannot send me a picture of the dog. I am sure I can find a home for the dog but all I need is a picture of the dog and then I will do an ad for the dog and hopefully rehome - old Corgis seem to rehome quite well and she sounds like a beautiful dog. I need someone who can go and take a digital photo and email to me!

Wondering if someone can help me? I need a photo of a dog that urgently needs a home. If you can help, please pm me. I'd need the photo emailed to me. Thanks!

Hugs to you, so sad for you. RIP Busta, sweet boy.

Agreed Steve, it isn't easy to just take an ex breeding dog and place it into a new home but if it hasn't been socialised and cared for properly then it isn't right in the first place to have the dog. Some dogs who've lived alone can adapt - I rescued a 14 yr old in March and she's adapted well, just like the 9 yr old I rescued in 2007, both led similar lives of neglect without any other dogs and they both were very happy here. I was lucky for sure, it did require time and effort. Noone should end up with a large undesexed dog in their pack - dogs being rehomed should ALWAYS be desexed first, no matter where they are from.

Sandgrubber, no personal nastiness intended in my posts, just trying to get through all the diatribe in your posts to the salient points which is what I think Sheridan was also doing. Your main concerns appear not to be for the dogs suffering in puppy farms but for breeders who might be targeted as well. That's what I find truly objectionable. Is it OK to stop all investigations into puppy farms and similar facilities in case a breeder is also investigate? I don't think so. I'm not going to trawl through your masses of posts on the news forum so I can copy and paste here but I do recall you declaring that well run commercial breeding facilities were excellent and deserved to make a profit. No matter how clean, no matter how many staff employed (and don't forget these places are all about profit) - that still does not provide a dog with a home environemnt. One in which you can spot any issues. Steve did not believe a recent case in which dogs were taken from a breeding facility (I don't know that I'd call it a puppy farm, there were a lot of dogs, some pregnant, some on heat and so on) which included bitches that were around 7 or 8 yrs of age that had been bred continuously for years. Their "insides were a mess" according to the vet. Steve thought that this was not possible. When I related that to the rescuer involved (no, not an animal liberationalist - dogs were purchased from closing down sale), they were flabbergasted, as was I. What else could be the cause of their insides being a mess? Not back to back breeding? A mysterious virus perhaps? They all had ear infections, untreated, and several other health issues including one which cost $1000s to fix. Is it OK to euthanase breeding dogs because they can no longer breed? I don't believe so. Is it an accepted practice amongst those who breeder? For some, yes. I remain grateful to the animal liberationalists for revealing the evil of puppy farms. For evil to flourish, good people just need to do nothing as the saying goes.

Snipped the rest to respond to this strawman nonsense. Yes, some small breeders are neglectful as much as large breeders but so what? It isn't a justification. Honestly, I don't know why some of the puppyfarm apologists in these threads just don't go out and set one up themselves. You don't see anything wrong with it, so what's stopping you all? ah Sheridan, I love the way you cut thru crap!

I'm still awaiting Steve's and Sandgrubber's appearance as they have much to say on this issue but also on the fact that there's nothing wrong with "well run commercial enterprises" or "back to back breeding". Issues that I state here and now, I have always been vehemently against. None of the pages upon pages of blurb that they wrote will change my mind. It is simply not the way for a companion animal to survive and I mean survive for it is not living. I have an ex puppy farm dog myself, it's not as if I have no experience - I may not (and will never be) a breeder but have been working with dogs and many have been damaged, for over 10 years.

I agree with what others have said - firstly go to the vet for a review (unless you HAVE changed what you feed her on). No punishment of any kind, no change of your tone etc, just clean up and you can use vinegar and water or Napisan and water mix. Put in a doggie door. Try feeding full meal in the morning - my friend does this and her dogs are outside all day and poop as they need to. She took on one of my fosters that was always having accidents here when I was at work because she would not use the doggie door for some reason. At my friend's place, with the change of routine and situation she's the perfect fit.

Very interesting. Not really a surprise to me but there are some members of this forum who really need to read and digest this information as they can see nothing wrong with large commercial facilities churning out puppies and think puppy farms are fairy tales invented by animal liberationists (for what purpose I haven't worked out but anyhow, that's what they think). Perhaps I should send them a pm ....

Any changes at all in the household? Has there been a storm in the last few days? Any other changes in her behaviour, no matter how subtle? Can you install a doggie door?

What a precious girl, so sad for your loss.

Yes, I should qualify what I've written above about on lead aggression - my foxy began to learn not to go crazy at the sight of approaching dogs, buses etc and I distracted him by getting him to sit and feeding treats etc but it did not mean that he had to be anywhere near the other dog, far from it.

You need to know that this is not uncommon and there are some things you can do towards fixing his behaviour. I've worked in dog rescue for over 15 years so I have quite a bit of experience with dogs - just in case you assume I'm only a small dog owner. My first recommendation is NOT to go to dog parks - they are very dangerous places for a small dog. There have been deaths in the parks around here, quite a lot over the last 5 years I'd have to say - not big dogs, all small dogs being attacked by larger dogs. Get your exercise in your own backyard or friend's yards or find a dog park for only small dogs. If he shows any fear or aggression SOME larger dogs may take him on and he won't win! I don't know if you got him as a puppy but perhaps something frightening happened to him when he was younger? Is he desexed? Secondly, my next recommendation is NOT to go up to other dogs whilst on lead to "say hello". Other people might want to do that with your dogs but don't allow it - cross the road or step into someone's driveway and avoid them. I cannot believe the amount of people that want to do this - one of my dogs gets excited on the lead and recently I had 3 of them, she was busy going off her brain and this lady comes towards me with another small dog "just to say hello" as I was trying to avoid her, quite obviously, I couldn't believe it. My dogs wouldn't have done anything to hers but how did she know that? She wasn't reading theirs or my body language! You don't know how someone else's dog will react on lead - their behaviour can be radically different from when they are off leash. Thirdly, on lead aggression is your other issue and this can be fixed. I saw the method on "it's me or the dog" and trained it out of one foxy I had, it took 2 weeks and he'd also been to obedience training. Whenever I saw the object that would send him crazy approaching (other dog, bus, bike etc), I would get him to sit and start feeding him treats - this begins to make the appearance of these objects more rewarding for the dog. It's about distraction, management and reward. No, I haven't done it with my current foxy due to my current time limits for this sort of thing but it worked on my other foxy who was a crazy little dog and he used to set my other dogs off and every walk was a nightmare in the end. With my current foxy it is only other dogs so it's a bit harder to predict when I would see one. So to round it up - stop putting him in situations that cause him major anxiety (dog park and meeting big dogs close up on lead) and do some work on his on lead aggression. This will NOT mean that if you are successful you should start walking him up to have meet and greet with other dogs on lead! You still should not do that.

I'm so sorry that you had to go through this Kirty, you tried very hard for Nessie but it wasn't to be. As hard as it is to bear, you have done the right thing for her, the bravest thing because it has broken your heart in the process. Nessie would know how much you loved and cared for her and I'm sure she'll be by your side as her true owner, not the awful people that first owned her and put you into this terrible situation. Hugs to you, you do amazing things to help the animals, please take some time for yourself now.

You could call Dogtainers. I used Jetpets before a few times and have only ever had 1 issue.

As someone who has rehomed many dogs and owned many dogs, you simply cannot predict which ones will take a leak at someone else's house. It's often nothing to do with them being housetrained or not. My very cleanest dog, an Iggy/Foxy cross, lifted his leg at a friend's at the weekend - I was mortified. Zaddy - this was not the handler's fault and not the dog's either. Fostering is not for you I'd say. I had a foster carer of mine ask me for a housetrained dog next time and I had to explain that very few arrive housetained. Don't go for a greyhound, just in case the dog isn't what you want, from what you've said already, they won't be right for you. I think they are absolutely wonderful and it's my dream to have one. Why not take one of those short online tests that matches a breed to your requirements? Might give you some good ideas.

Sounds like me, but that didn't stop a colleague recently dropping grannie's old spaniel cross into the RSPCA when grannie went into a home. When she told me, I explained the dog didn't stand a chance but her parents had been on the phone to the RSPCA every other day demanding to know where the dog was at. They've been given several explanations - last week's was "the dog is being desexed". Then they suddenly rememebered that she was already done (all info given to RSPCA at time of dump). Family WAS in a position to have the dog, they just didn't want it. Now they are all care and concern though. I believe the dog is dead, ethanased because of the mass of dogs being dumped at the Sydney RSPCA constantly - who wants a motheaten old dog. I would have helped if I'd known. Another colleague bought an oodle from a petshop and the puppy got quite sick, already had a hernia and she was in and out the vets, needed surgery. This is a senior person at work and she ended up taking the petshop to a small claims court or similar and won some money back for vet bills ... You can only try and educate people but mostly I find, they don't listen or want to know, they want to do whatever they decide without too much thought behind it quite often. Got another colleague who got an oodle from relatives who bought it on impulse in a pet shop, left outside for 10 hrs a day and then not allowed inside because it wasn't housetrained. She took the dog from them after a few months and now she wants to get rid of it - she won't have it inside either and it does have the company of her dogs but it does bark and wants to come in. Selfish relatives won't want it to come to rescue she said to find a home, they'll take it back??? WTF?? That won't work .... I dread to think of what may happen to the poor little mite. What do you do with people?

What a scumbag.

Well something in the UK is working much better than here. Population of around 60 million and around 16,000 unwanted dogs euthanased each year. Compare that to Australia, population of around 21 million and around 150,000 unwanted dogs euthanased each year. Something is very wrong in this country and in this regard we are certainly not ahead or better than the UK. Last year I visited some shelters over there. One shelter in Berkshire took in dogs via councils in Wales as there was a loose and unwanted dog issue happening there but not locally. Battersea Dogs Home has a massive problem with unwanted staffies in particular. Right now they are having an issue thanks to Paris Hilton, handbag dogs being turfed out, many are being rescued. Still would not be anywhere near the numbers of dogs being destroyed in this country however.