Her Majesty Dogmad

no and nor is it responsible to pass such a dog on to another situation

And I'd like to smack all the stupid people that leave other types of prey animals to be preyed upon by predators. RIP the little dog in the pound that I wished to rescue but was condemned to death by the authorities for killing a guinea pig. The only question I had was "WHO GAVE THE DOG ACCESS TO THE GUINEA PIG?" Answer - the bloody owners. RIP all the little animals that have and will continue to be preyed upon. And before anyone makes a presumption about my likes and dislikes - I have owned and loved animals other than dogs.

Poor little fellow, that's horrific. Hugs to you all, there are so many wicked people out there making good and loving people and animals suffer needlessly. I sincerely hope this person gets caught and severely punished. RIP beautiful and innocent little Neil.

My heart goes out to you. I have tears in my eyes after reading about Billy's horrific treatment at the hands of his owner. Why oh why do people do this? You are a lucky person if you are in a position to own a dog and should not abuse them. Thank God Billy found you, someone with a huge heart and so much love to give. Not many people would do this, I'm so glad you cared for him and loved him. that will be what he remembers and I know he'll be waiting for you. Hugs to you, you are a very special person and sweet Billy was a very special little boy.

I'm sure the breeder would be happy to help?

I'm very much against caged birds - rarely have I seen a bird in a cage big enough. Birds (apart from chickens, quails etc) were meant to fly free. Just because someone has $100s or even $1000s to spend really doesn't mean much. How do I know? Because I talk to the people that just paid $1200 for a puppy in the petshop they no longer want. This conversation can take place a week, a month or a year after said puppy was purhcased. It makes no difference. Quite often, the puppy hasnt really had much attention, no training and not much love either. So having the finances means very little it seems.

this reduced me to tears last night, so much evil around

what an unenlightened country. very scared for the animals and their owners

Very sad indeed, unfortunately it is often risky mixing the sizes. A terrible end for any dog and a terrible thing to witness for children.

Charming. I swear, half of 'dog park' etiquette is people skills. I spend almost as much time in dog parks reading other owners as I do reading dogs. A lot of problems can be avoided by just watching other people and erring on the side of caution. If someone is holding their dog and won't put them down, d'ya think perhaps they are uncomfortable with your dog's proximity and interest? You can think your dog is doing nothing wrong but still call it away. Particularly seeing as the other owner seems nervous. We call our dogs away if they start following anyone around, even if it's dogs and people we know. I call my dogs away if they are chasing another dog and getting that glassy-eyed, ears-forward look about them. My dogs are very well socialised and generally gentle and polite with other dogs, but intense play can so easily go bad, especially with dogs that aren't very close friends. Dogs that are very aroused in play are IMO less likely to heed signals from the other dog that they want to stop. That's where most of our problems have started. I'm a fan of viewing every interaction with another dog as a potential training opportunity. If my dog is saying politely (looking away, ears/tail down, moving away) "Please stop that", then that's my chance to reinforce the polite, non-aggressive communication by making sure the behaviour my dog doesn't like does stop before he feels the need to say it more firmly. Most of the time all I need to do is move him away from the other dog. Well said. No dog, no matter what size it is, should be allowed to harass another dog but PARTICULARLY when it is a large dog harassing a smaller one. Dog parks are dangerous places FULL STOP. But especially for small dogs. They are also dangerous for people sometimes. There have been a couple of serious assaults around this area, presumably in situations described above. If a GSD was chasing my small dog relentlessly then I would do something. I wouldn't expect a mouthful of abuse from the irresponsible owner, or perhaps I would. Noone these days accepts liability for anything it seems. I was chased by a large German Shepherd whilst walking along the road with my tiny dogs. I put my foot out to stop it getting too close to mine who were panicking. Owners were shouting at me to stop kicking their dog - which I wasn't doing. Did they apologise? No. Apparently it was all my fault for walking 3 tiny dogs on lead. Enough said? That is the mentality of far too many people these days. Dogs die in dog parks all the time - I've heard of several cases in the last few months in this area. Don't take your small dog into places that are high risk, ie dog parks.

my dogs can't hold on for 8 hrs, they have a doggie door. as they get older they can get Cushings etc which means they drink a lot and pee a lot

Lately and much to my surprise, what appear to be purebred Border Collie puppies have been turning up in Sydney pounds. Perhaps they have been purchased from petshops and are being dumped although some have appeared with their mothers. PAWS has recently taken a surrendered 6 month old Pomeranian puppy, originally from a petshop and purchased by students at a nearby Uni. Rehomed 3 times more and finally the last person rang the vet to get the puppy put to sleep. Thankfully the vet rang PAWS. This is only one of many dumped ex petshop puppies that we have had, each with a similar story. It has to stop.

What an f---wit this person is, hard to believe she is as experienced as she says. Obviously wanted "instant dog" and had nfi. Bloody petshops and damn those unscrupulous morons that supply them. When, oh when, will people develop a conscience about them and get them closed down?

Well, as long as everyone knows that buying a puppy from a petshop is not "rescuing" an animal, it's not the same thing. And that buying any animal from a petshop is DEMAND creating SUPPLY, ie the goods now have to be replaced. Petshops of course do start reducing the price as the puppy grows and if they were taken to a vet for euthanasia that is better than being dumped in the middle of nowhere or knocked on the head. Carrie, which rescue group are you with? Or which group do you run - you mentioned you rescue dogs and cats?

Sorry but I think it's rather risky to generalise, my little dogs have been attacked by different BCs on more than one occasion. Not a breed I would particularly trust after my experiences. How about an Australian Shepherd, my neighbour's Aussie Shepherd used to escape and come into my house and spend the day with my littlies, she's a very gentle dog. There's an Aussie Shepherd breeder on DOL "The Ark".

carrie - if you read my first post, I was asking where the OP got their new puppy from. Knowing that a dog is a poodle/foxie cross would indicate to me that this dog has either come from a pet shop (at this age) or a back yard breeder. Your post did sound like you "rescued" them from Pets Paradise. I'm often told this by people, that they rescued their puppy from a petshop, i don't understand who or how you got your puppies - did a rescue group get them out the petshop? As I say, it's not their fault, they didn't ask to be born. It's how their parents live and what they are forced to endure.

It is not the puppies fault BUT the more that people are prepared to buy dogs from petshops or even direct from the puppy farms means that we have DEMAND = SUPPLY. Taking the emotion out and looking at the economics, you only create something if there's a market for it. Whilst there is a market for animals in petshops/internet sales etc, their parents will continue to endure their rotten life as breeders. I work in rescue and know some people who went undercover to get some dogs from somewhere where the byb was downsizing. They had become inconvenient now, not that the person was giving up byb'ing altogether but the ones chosen to go were being advetised as 'bred xxx litters, good for more". What sort of people would be interested in taking dogs from an ad like that? Generally, people who want to continue to breed them to make money. Those dogs don't live a life. The rescued ones all had bad teeth and ear infections. When will the world listen? We do need to care where our puppies come from and how their parents live and what they are forced to endure. What happens to the puppies that don't look quite right or the female dogs that are having trouble giving birth?? I doubt that you would want to know.

so very young, I'm so sorry, poor Folly and poor you.

so sorry she had to leave you this way and so early too. Hugs to you. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Can I ask where you got a mini poodle/foxie cross from?

Those poor, poor dogs. I hope they can find a punishment that fits her crime, I doubt it though. I also doubt that this was a once off, her boyfriend should have thrown her out long before it got to this level, this is really very sick and twisted behaviour which must have had some signs beforehand. I can never understand why people get involved with others who don't like their animals. Disliking them is one thing (and I'm sure the animals sense it) but harming them with either mental or physical abuse or both is completely unacceptable. I'd string anyone up if I caught them abusing my dogs but then they wouldn't be with me, love me love my dogs. never would I be so desperate for human company that I'd compromise my dogs.

And because petshops get away with selling crossbreeds for ridiculous amounts of money, morons start breeding their undesexed pet shop puppies when they come into season and start selling them for a profit - it does happen, believe me, I've seen the results! Two pet shop puppies made a litter of pups with 4 different breeds in them. No wonder rescuers have trouble identifying dogs these days, not uncommon to have more than 2 breed mixes in one dog .... Latest thing in our local petshop is to list dogs as 3/4 This Breed and 1/4 That Breed. And they sell Staffies with Kelpies or Sharpei crosses - not a great mix idea but don't let that stop you making money. It makes me sick to the core.

I'd really love to show them some great examples of responsible sales they made from their petshops. 2 weeks ago, PAWS took on two dogs, both purchased from petshops on a whim. there is nothing unusual about these two stories. However, this is just one rescue group and one that takes surrenders as well as dogs from pounds. Person 1 allowed her 5 yr old son to "insist" she bought him a pet shop puppy. She is actually someone that probably shouldn't ever have a dog. She is obsessed that the dog smelt, really bad. So bad, that if her son touched the dog, she made him get changed. Finally, it was time to get rid of the dog - well, I suppose they had had the dog for 2 long years at this stage. Reason? Needing to move into rental and i quote "not prepared to replace the floorboards in a short term rental home due to the smell that the dog would leave behind". The dog had been examined and tested by a vet, to no avail, no cause for the smell could be found. The dog was on a good diet and regular baths, not walked. Dog still smelt. Our rescue vet, staff and foster carers have been unable to smell anything abnormal. Go figure. Person 2 was 78 at the time of purchase, only lonely for about 2-3 hours a week but that's what the puppy's job was, to keep her company at those times. Puppy was kept only in the kitchen, barely walked and 18 months later was no more use. person decided it was time to move into a retirement village. Luckily for this puppy, an overloaded rescue took the poor little thing on. She's now living a happy home life with a number of other dogs, awaiting a permanent home. And this is just 2 dogs in one rescue group in one week. Not sure where the other dogs rescued the same week came from (via the pound), but I'd like to put money on it that some were ex pet shop purchases. they are often not microchipped so you don't know. petshops do get their stock from back yard breeders who are also lowlifes. I did talk to another lady trying to rehome her little dog last night, due to a change in personal circumstances. She's heartbroken and had rescued this dog from a sad situation. She's doubly sad because before she got this one at Christmas, she'd had to euthanase a 6 month old maltese/shihtzu that she bought from a back yard breeder in Sydney's east. Puppy cost $600. She only had the puppy for 3 months before it died. It had a major spinal defect and as it grew, it couldn't walk properly and was in pain. Moronic money hungry breeder didn't want to know of course and I wonder how many more people out there are buying poor little badly bred puppies that die in agony a few months later. It is a disgusting industry that needs regulation. It is an industry causing rescuers to be simply overloaded and overwhelmed. Please, if you read this, never buy a puppy online, in a petshop or from a back yard breeder. They are in it for the money so imagine what happens when the breeding cycle goes wrong, a dog needs vet treatment and so on. Demand = supply.

I tend to find this sort of thing obscene when there are animals and owners homeless in Japan and many animals suffering across the world.

Some have been instant for me such as my "Echo" in my avatar but he was a little shit when I got him home and required some effort from me, he had some very bad habits that were hard to bear. Others have been slower to leave their pawprints on my heart but they did, it just took time. I'm the same with people, I'm sure we all are so don't be too hard on yourself!