Her Majesty Dogmad

We have been waiting for one of our contacts in Brisbane to do a home check for a couple of weeks but unfortunately they are simply too busy to do this right now. Our boy is in Sydney and all ready to go so we'd like to do this homecheck asap ideally by this weekend or on Sat so that we can organise transport for next Wed (going by road). If you can help please send me a pm.

Trouble is, the Cavvies keep coming! PAWS also regularly gets them and a pounds in Sydney too. There are also some good breeders in NSW.

I'm happy to send you my method but puppies take a lot longer - you just need to keep being patient and consistent, keeping up the rewards and praise. PM your email address to me and I'll email the method back, it's written for adult dogs but you can use it for puppies too - and Italian Greyhounds but they take longer as well! :)

My dogs are all housetrained. I got home last night to find a dog turd with bits broken off, sitting on the sofa. I know who the culprit is - it's my Italian Greyhound. Every now and then she goes back to her old habits of eating other dogs' poo so we go back on the pineapple for a few days and she stops for a while. Tonight I get home to 3 piles of poo and 1 of vomit in the lounge room. God knows what had gone on - there had been a storm outside but this has never cause such a mess before .....

No, death is too good for this a---hole, how utterly vile. My wish is that he crashes and becomes a quadraplegic, that would do him good, he'd have plenty of time to contemplate what a miserable, disgusting oxygen thief he is.

I wouldn't put any breed that are prone to yapping in a unit, you need to be careful because neighbours are all too quick to complain these days.

Do you ever drive to Sydney or would you consider it? Save Our Strays have a number of Cavvies right now. They recently had someone drive from VIC to meet their Cresties, it's well worth it when you will have the dog for years to come and you just can't find one locally.

At Iggy Rescue, if we discover another group has taken an Iggy then we will offer them all our support (they are a breed with a lot of unusual idiosyncracies) and in some cases, we are able to forward a suitable person from our waiting list to adopt the dog. We only keep people on our waiting list that our familiar with the breed and have got a suitable home etc.

I'm very careful, with some dogs I have no worries whatsoever but I've had a few that I've had to keep separate whilst fostering them as sometimes they are just not comfortable for some reason. Best to be safe rather than sorry. My own dogs are wonderful and generally love the incoming fosters but some dogs coming in have had food/toy aggression issues. 1 Iggy cross I had recently was quite nervous around my dogs, we think he'd been attacked by other dogs at some point so he was always separated when I was out.

No, not bad or stupid necessarily but uninformed, uneducated, inexperienced - yes, for much of the time. Most people frequenting dog parks are just normal dog owners. They may have owned 2, perhaps 3 dogs in their lives, they simply have little idea of dog body language and like to go to the park to chat to other owners. I recently heard about an event in a dog park in Windsor, someone came in with an Amstaff which proceeded to get very excited in the pursuit of a small dog before it had a go. Luckily someone with experience was nearby and stopped things from getting worse. Turns out the Amstaff had just (literally that morning) been adopted from the pound nearby. The new owner had no idea whatsoever - knew nothing about the breed they had just picked up, the dangers they were putting other dogs in and so on. Of course it could have been just fine but the new owner could not have known that. A dog is a very long term commitment, I can't understand people who don't research it properly, get some education and know what they are doing. Most people probably research a car brand far more than a dog breed/type and this is why dumpage is so enormous - that and the fact that if they were honest with themselves they would have been better getting a plant for their garden than a living being that was going to take some effort and expenditure on their part.

In NSW, it was the mayhem caused by dog walkers and unsafe practices with multiple dogs that changed the law that you could only legally have 4 dogs under your control in a public area and speaking as someone who normally has more dogs than that, 4 at one time outside the home is more than enough and too many with larger, stronger breeds. I love my dogs very much, they are walked daily and socialise with each other. My last foster dog was more active and needed more exercise so I went to the dog park (he was extremely sociable). It was fine, most of the time until last time when he was (at 11 kilos) monstered by two German Shorthaired Pointers. Someone came and told me they were undesexed so I immediately grabbed him and removed him from the park, couldn't see the owners anywhere as I was trying to yank their dogs away from mine. If he'd responded to their appalling behaviour I felt he'd have been in trouble. Just the next day these two same dogs attacked another dog in the same park. And that is a typical example of why I hate dog parks and why they are really unsafe much of the time.

I don't agree with some of what you have said, you are speaking to experienced rescuers here in some cases, including myself. On no account should an unknown dog be taken off leash in a dog park to socialise - fighting, guard dog types etc especially. This is where people go wrong - by thinking they must socialise their dog in an offleash situation when they are not qualified to understand a dog's body language (their own or someone else's) or what to do if things go wrong. Things can go badly wrong if their dog attacks a smaller animal. Any interactions need to be supervised by a dog expert. You are a dog walker, it's not the same thing.

I hope this moron is jailed for animal cruelty, he simply doesn't deserve any kind of animal. I hope that she can be rehomed to the people that really love her and did the right thing.

Absolutely a recipe for disaster and the poor little Norfolk has paid a terrible price for the stupidity of all involved and I include the idiot owners as well.

I think as you already looked at doing this a year ago, this seems like a real gift and opportunity. Think about how much longer you would like to rescue, most of us burn out in the end - emotionally, physically and financially. Maybe it's better to bow out while you are still OK? Of course it would be a terrible shame for all those dogs needing rescue but I've realised something myself, nothing we do as individuals seems to be able to stem the flow of unwanted pets. It is a national disgrace. Sometimes we need to think about our own selves, most of us make many sacrifices but sometimes in life it's time to think about you. Doesn't mean you'll never rescue again, maybe you just need to change the types of dogs you rescue or there are other ways in which you can assist. More than one rescuer has turned into something else - breeder, show person etc. It's not a crime and has probably brought them much joy after many years of hard rescue work.

I do a lot of interstate rehomings of purebred Iggies. If the dog is listed with the NSW Govt in your name, when you rehome interstate you just need to complete the same form (Transfer of Ownership) with all the new owner's details and send it to the council. Just check with your council that is all they need. Then when the new owner gets the papers from the NSW Govt, they need to register the dog with their council in ACT and they will tell them whatever else is needed at that point. If I've rescued a Victorian dog and am rehoming in VIC (which I do from time to time), there is a different form/authority.

That's the kind of situation where whoever has rescue 'ownership' is leaving themselves open to blame, if a dog, already noted to have serious problems, is sent on to then cause more mayhem. The damage done here is definitely not outweighed by this group redirecting funds to 1 dog .... this damage lasts in the memories of people until they die. And what of the dead animal? How much did it suffer? Did it deserve to die in this way? No Pound Rounds, it didn't. And by taking the offendign dog elsewhere and working in the way you work, it will happen again until someone steps up to the plate and deals with the monster that you are inflicting on society.

This is exacly how I work, it's crucial to check in the first 2 weeks I believe. I usually ring on the 2nd day and then stay in touch by email every few days for the 2 week or 4 week trial period, depending on what I've agreed. Dogs do behave differently in a new home, although I've already discussed all of that in full it can go in one ear and out the other so i do like to check. I call it diligence!

I'd say he might have been bitten by something. Do you have any white tailed spiders in your area or anything like that?

Yes, definitely ignore the whining, she's just got that initial sep anx and wants to be with you. She will settle but you do need to ignore her - hard I know when you are trying to sleep! I've found it just takes a few days and they will be much better. Get some Rescue Remedy in drop form from the chemist - about $18. You can drop it onto the dog's head, under their tongue or into their water (better if you only have one dog) and this helps them relax. You can do this as often as you like (every couple of hours) and def. before bedtime, it will really help. You could also give her an old T shirt you've been wearing to sleep with, that will also help settle her and just leave there for her each night. She's not settled into the routine or new home yet, it does take a while.

Send a pm to DOL Member "Schnauzer" - that's Glenda, she is Schnauzer Rescue for the Club in NSW.

Hi there - good on you for adopting a dog from the pound. I've been rehoming shelter and pound dogs for over 10 years. The very best thing you can do to get the dog to settle in best is to almost ignore them for 2 weeks (this advice is from a behaviouralist), just keep up your normal routine of feeding, walking etc but don't overdo it with new experiences or people visiting during this time. After 2 weeks of that, the dog has had a chance to find her way round the new home, your routines etc and will be more comfortable. It's about 2 months before the dog is totally bonded with you as their new owner. I'm a housetraining expert, having trained 100s of dogs both here in my own home and those that people are fostering/adopting. If you send me a pm, I am happy to email you my method and/or answer any questions you have. Please avoid the house with the dogs that set her off - she doesn't need stress whilst settling in, I can help you with that too but just let her settle for a couple of weeks ...

And I'm sorry Kavik - by the time I dragged myself out of the pound and onto the stalls, everything was closing down and I passed your stall but you'd all gone!

She was the whole reason i went to HP yesterday! HP were waiting for me to call them last week as they knew she was my type of dog but someone had just beaten me to it!! I was sure she had Iggy in there although she's chipped as a Chi x but when I saw her there was no question, she's very Iggy in the body with a Chi type face. I've been so worried about her, jumpers are often no good on Iggies and I will send them a different type of coat for her - she's likely to be stuck there for 2 weeks because her first lot of owners rehomed her years ago and didn't change paperwork over.

I was at HP yesterday and I just wanted to highlight two particularly lovely dogs - there's a 10 yr old black/white kelpie cross boy, he's full of life but not overwhelming, a very nice nature. He just needs desexing and a bath - his teeth were in amazing condition and that was another reasno why we thought he may not be 10. It wasn't possible to test him with other dogs but he was lovely with people. There is also a 2 yr old kelpie cross male - i'd say kelpie/labrador cross - he's very well trained in all the standard commands, not a barker, just wagging his tail and happily saying hello. He's had all his work done I believe. Lots of other dogs in there of course but these two were real standouts. I hope that the kelpie x boy may have adoption but wanted to highlight him anyway. I believe the 2 yr old Kelpie x boy was surrendered and his pic isn't on the pound site and my camera battery was flat doh!