spikey

Great idea! Will have to keep that one in mind. Another good suggestion, but as the back seat area in the Statesman is so big (especially as neither hubby or I have very long legs, so the driver's seat is well forward), we'd need at least a couple (or three!) to cover the back/sides/front/floor of the whole area and might be a big tricky with gaps between the places where they're joined, in case she got her leg (or legs) caught (which knowing her, she would!), so probably better if I can use something that's all one piece if possible. It is a pity! Hopefully another DOLer over there might be keen to buy it.

Thanks for the offer Kelpiecuddles, I had a chance to check through the listings myself this afternoon so am in the process of sorting out how to rig up the sheet as a temporary measure and maybe that will do fine anyway for the moment.

Thanks for the links Kelpiecuddles, I'll check them out. Only problem is, I'd really like to actually look at the cover before buying anything as I want to make sure it won't be too slippery. Welshpool's quite a trek for us, and not sure if I can get down there before Thursday because of work. Will see how I go! Ness - we actually had a look in Kmart today, but they didn't have anything - in fact we notice every time we go in there that our local Kmart has really reduced their range in practically all their departments except for clothing. Will have a look in another store if I can get to one this week.

Thanks, I've checked out the local Supercr*p ... er, Supercheap :) but they didn't have anything, so will have a look in Repco on the way home tomorrow. Thanks for the link Kelpicuddles, didn't see your reply until today so the auction's ended on that one - I've found when ordering stuff on Ebay that it usually takes at least a week or more to get to W(ait)A(while) thanks to the great (not) service of Australia Post, and looks like I'll need something for this Thursday, so if no luck with the car accessory places, I think I'll just resort to the sheet idea and see how that goes!

Thanks for that Jess - all our old mattress protectors have been cut up and used for dog bedding over the years, otherwise they would have been ideal, and we're not doing beach trips with her any more these days and don't have to worry about the seat getting wet or anything so no need for a tarp, so looks like the sheet will be the way to go.

The back seat area in the Statesman is HUGE, so I think a king sheet will be the only thing that's big enough LOL. As you suggested, attaching the corners to the headrests would probably be the best way to go - might have to have a trial run tomorrow and see how that works. I've dug out an old seatbelt harness that came with her when hubby bought her years ago (before I met him - she was sold on by someone who got her from Shenton Park Dogs' Home) so we'll be able to use that to make travelling a bit safer for her and for us. Even though she hasn't worn it for years, thankfully she doesn't seem too bothered by it. I'll let you know what we come up with and how well it works (or doesn't, as the case may be!) :)

I was thinking of an old king-size cotton sheet as a temporary measure, keeping it in place is the only thing - will have to check out the back seat and see what attachment points there are apart from the rear headrests to see if I can rig something up!

Yes, I thought the same when I looked at the photos Westiemum - how it looks is of absolutely no concern to me whatsoever, but I wondered whether it might be a bit too slippery. A lot of these things are made of similar types of material so that they're easily washable I suppose. A cotton blanket would be OK if we just wanted to cover the base of the seat and/or the footwell, but we need to cover the upright back part of the seat as well (the seats are leather), and it would be quite difficult to get a blanket to stay in place, we really need something that can attach to the rear headrests. Madam has never been one to really settle when travelling, she likes to move about, sit up, lie down for a while, sit up again, stick her nose up to the open window to have a sniff, lie down again, sit up, look out the window - and one of her favourites - stare out the windows at the people in the cars behind or beside us when you're at the traffic lights LOL. Wasn't a problem in the wagon as she either travelled in a crate or behind the cargo barrier, but neither is an option with a sedan of course! I think I'll have a look around at the local auto shops and see whether they might have anything suitable.

Hubby just traded in our old wagon and now has a Statesman, so we're looking for a reasonably-priced cover for the rear seat. Our girl is medium-sized with a long coat, and doesn't often travel in the car except for her annual vet check-up and also once or twice a year to stay with her "grandparents" if we're going away on holidays. I'd like to get one with sides on it if possible, and I know the Back Seat Buddy gets excellent reviews but to be honest, given that she's rarely in the car, and the fact that she's now 14 years old (and sadly, may not be with us much longer), we really would rather not spend that sort of money. It's an older Statesman anyway, not a new one, so hubby just wants something to protect the back seat from claw marks etc. I found this one on the Running Dog website:http://runningdog.net.au/products/sage-back-seat-protector-for-dogs - has anyone purchased from this site? Thanks :)

I can highly recommend The Paw House in Fraser Road at Canning Vale - our girl LOVES the place, doesn't even look back when I drop her off - or if I use their pick-up service, she hops in the van without even a backward glance LOL. We've used them numerous times for periods from a few days up to as long as 6 weeks and our girl comes back fitter than when she went in, and full of beans - not bad for a (now)14 year old! There are separate kennel areas for large and small dogs and they have lovely big grassy runs so the dogs get the opportunity for plenty of exercise and playtime and the prices are quite reasonable. The owners, Claire and Leigh, are great, they adore the dogs and take excellent care of them. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post their website here, but if you Google The Paw House, you'll find it.

We were with Petplan for a couple of years (policies for two dogs, then one), but cancelled the last policy about 5 years ago - their admin and customer service were pretty woeful at the best of times, but the last straw was when my credit card had to be cancelled due to some fraudulent activity. I had a number of direct debits on that card, so immediately contacted the companies concerned, including Petplan, to advise the card had been cancelled and that I would send through the new card details ASAP (which thanks to NAB, took three WEEKS to get!). I initially contacted Petplan by phone, but had to leave a message. Followed up by fax and email, tried to call them again, again went to answering machine, sent further fax and email when the new credit card details arrived, but I could never get anyone from Petplan to call or email me back. No money came out of the credit card the first month, and again, more fruitless attempts to get hold of someone at Petplan. Then two months later, I received an EXTREMELY nasty letter from them demanding the outstanding premiums otherwise they would cancel the policy. I was so fed up by that point that I sent a rather terse reply by snail mail AND email, telling them to go right ahead and cancel the policy, listing all the attempts to contact them (dates, times, methods etc), and that I didn't wish to continue to hold a policy with an insurance company whose admin department was so incompetent. I asked them to confirm in writing that the policy had been cancelled, but of course never received any reply. Judging by some posts in this thread, it doesn't sound like things have improved much!

I have to be honest here, I developed an immense dislike of cats from a young age, after growing up seeing them stalk and kill so much of the native wildlife in the bush reserve behind our house, but holy crap - I have to take my hat off to this feisty kitty. What on earth would have happened if she hadn't intervened is too horrible to even contemplate. Obviously the mother was close by, but if she had been the one who had rushed in to try to get the dog off her child, it's highly likely the dog would not have released - in an intense attack like that, the dog is so focussed on the "prey" that it can be almost impossible to break their grip. Even if the dog had released, it probably would have savaged her instead. That attack is truly one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen - what you would expect in that situation would be if the dog saw the movement under the car and went "hang on, what's that", runs around the other side of the car and then goes "oh, it's a kid on a bike, aren't I silly" and trots off or goes up and says hello, but the body language the dog displayed was horrifying to watch - even though it clearly saw and identified what the movement was, it fully intended to attack, and quite probably to kill. Thank God for that cat, is all I can say.

From the news reports, the dog (APBT) attacked the older woman around her face and neck area, and her daughter (the dog's owner) received puncture wounds to her hands trying to get the dog off her mother. Two men were walking down a nearby street and heard the screaming - they had just been to the bottleshop and had to resort to smashing beer bottles over the dog's head to loosen it's grip. Both women are in hospital and the dog has apparently been destroyed (thank goodness). Absolutely horrifying for all concerned.

Saw the report on the news - along with the even more horrific information that it's the third attack on a dog during a burglary/break-in here in a week!! One dog was bashed and had a leg broken, the other was kicked in the head and left in a pool of blood. Both were in a suburb just north of ours, but this is the first I've heard about it and it terrifies me that these sort of people are out there - our dog is 13 years old and although she'd bark if someone came over the fence, she's quite harmless otherwise, most of her teeth are so worn down she couldn't give a decent bite anyway. I can't even imagine coming home to find your old dog like that, I don't think you'd ever get over it, let alone imagining how the poor dog suffered.

Yes, there are variations in penalties from council to council here in Perth regarding dog attacks, I'm not sure what the City of Armadale's laws are, but I was hoping she could also somehow be charged for not assisting the injured woman. Even if she had to remove the dog from the scene, she should have then gone back to give assistance, or if that wasn't possible, then identify herself to rangers or the police and have the guts to admit that it was her dog. Too much to hope for, I guess ...

Exactly. What a pathetic coward she is - I wonder if she can be charged for failing to render assistance or something similar? Although I think that might only apply for motor vehicle crashes/hit-and-runs/etc. .

Have just seen the news report on Channel 10 - they said it was a dog "similar to this" and showed a photo of what looked like a brindle Staffy, so hopefully someone in the local area might be able to identify the owner and the dog.

My heart goes out to this lady and her dog. Speaking from personal experience - no, you (and your dog) are never the same again, but thankfully for us it was more the psychological trauma rather than physical damage, so she had it far worse than we did. Yes, it would have helped if they'd included at least some sort of description of the dog - I realise the poor woman was probably so traumatised by the attack and trying to protect herself and her dog that she probably didn't take in a lot of detail at the time, but at least the colour and approximate size of the dog and anything else she could recall. It's essential that they find the dog and the owner, but it's going to be almost impossible with so little info provided.

We leave a clam shell pool half full of water for our girl as soon as the weather starts to warm up, partially as an alternative water source and partially as a "cool-down" option. She never lies in it, but often jumps in with all 4 feet with a big splash if she's been doing zoomies or if we've been for a walk and the ground's getting a bit warm - and tends to have a huge drink at the same time. She does the same thing with the deep square plastic bucket we use for her main water dish - in the warm weather, she often puts at least one front foot, if not both, in the water whilst she's drinking, even when she's been in the shade for hours. Apparently there's nothing quite as good as feet-flavoured water - YUM. :laugh: For some reason, she's absolutely PETRIFIED of bottles filled with frozen water. She loves to play with empty soft drink bottles or 2L plastic milk bottles, but fill one with water, freeze it and put it anywhere near her and it's a different story ... she takes off like you've put a bomb next to her and stands as far away as possible, going "get that thing away from me". I have no idea why, we've tried every summer, but no dice, she won't have a bar of it. It's not as if she's been scared by the freezing sensation of it suddenly touching her or anything (and she's got an extremely thick furry black coat, so probably wouldn't feel it anyway!), just putting it down next to her is enough to send her scurrying. Yet empty the same bottle out, and chuck it to her to play with, and she's happy as a sandboy. Go figure ...

I used to have a long-coated GSD, who of course was a magnet for kids, especially with his big fluffy face and ears. I used to tie him up outside the local newsagent whilst I popped in to get the paper from the front of the shop and I could see him at all times. Had to come tearing back out of the shop one day as I saw a group of about 5 kids around the ages of 7 or 8 suddenly surround him, trying to untie him and squabbling amongst themselves who was going to take him for a walk!!!! I grabbed the lead just in time and wound it around my hand, then one obnoxious brat (a girl) started yanking at that hand, demanding "GIVE IT TO ME, I WANT TO HOLD HIM." No idea where their parents were. Another time I was walking back to the post I'd tied him to, and a mother and her toddler were approaching from the other direction - the toddler then ran straight at my dog (with the mother making no attempt to stop her), grabbed the hair around his face with both hands and pulled as hard as she could!!!! Luckily I was close enough that I could lunge forward to grab her and prise her off. The mother was up in arms about me "manhandling" her child - I felt like retorting that she was lucky that her daughter still had a face as my dog wasn't used to kids but GSDs had a bad enough rep at that time as it was, so we just left as quickly as possible before I said something I regretted! Thankfully my boy had a great temperament, but any dog could be provoked to snap in self-defence or if suddenly startled in that sort of situation so have never left a dog tied up outside a shop in all the years since.

Diva, I'm amazed how much your experiences are similar to mine. And also how it's affected you ... & how little the authorities can do about most of them. Mita and Diva, my experiences have been very similar to both of yours as well - and they've had a similar effect on me. The worst one was about 3 years ago, when two large Staffy/Mastiff Xs came hurtling out of a front yard, ran across one road and then out into the middle of an intersection to attack us. I am also on high alert at all times when walking my girl, but I had no warning and no chance whatsoever of anticipating or blocking the attack as these dogs came at us from behind at full speed. I heard the sound of running feet and turned just in time to see them coming at us, then one of them launched himself into the air and straight at my dog, grabbing her in the middle of the spine. Thankfully I was able to swing her around and away at that instant and he lost his grip (she's a medium-sized dog with - thankfully - a very thick coat). The second he hit the ground, he came at her again, with the other one circling and trying to attack as well. It was without a doubt the most terrifying experience I have ever had when walking my dog - I had nothing to defend us with, these dogs were lunging and snarling, I'm trying to block them, kicking out and screaming and trying to drive them off, hoping that SOMEONE would hear me and come to help - this was 11am on a Saturday in a suburban street, plenty of people at home but no one came to our assistance. I knew that if either of us fell or were knocked down that it would be game over - and when I constantly blocked their attempts to attack my dog, they came at me. Thank God a car came along the road and, using it as a barrier, I was able to drag my girl across to the other side of the road and up someone's driveway. I found out later these dogs had been left unsupervised in the front yard (two-foot high picket fence and no gates on the driveway) and so were free to do whatever they pleased - which obviously included a completely unprovoked attack on me and my elderly dog. I reported the incident to the ranger - or rather, the OH did as I was in too distressed a state to do anything by the time we got home. I had to go around and identify the dogs, as the owner denied they had been out in the street, and they were fined. They've since moved, so the dogs are probably terrorising some other neighbourhood now. Thankfully the physical damage was minor, but the mental scars run very deep and are still with us both. I was never particularly worried by charging dogs in the past either - I'd had several GSDs and was confident in my knowledge and handling of large dogs that I could prevent or drive off attacks - until that happened. Since then, we have been attacked several times and are constantly harassed/rushed/menaced by dogs off the lead - and there seems to be more and more people who not only walk their dogs off lead but don't even bother to carry a lead with them, and most I meet have little or not control over their dogs. Just about everywhere in our suburb is a "danger zone" - parks, local streets, you name it, we are constantly having to change direction, cross the road or even cut short planned walks because of these dogs and their idiot owners. Even going further afield doesn't seem to help, the problem seems to be everywhere. Walking my dog is no longer an enjoyable experience - and the stress and worry has taken it's toll. It's now reached the stage where, when our old girl goes, we will not be getting another dog. There's simply no point putting myself and my dog through all that stress and the constant risk of being attacked - it's bad enough the effect these attacks have on an older dog, I can't imagine what it must do to a puppy.

They're the new tough fashion dog. Rare breed, google the photos and all you get is Sch/KNPV/LE, phwaar let's get us a tough dog to guard the place. Enough BYBers out there too breeding bad temperament dogs. There's a couple of old stud dogs that really screwed a lot of Malinois, there are lines I would not touch with a 10 foot pole. Dog gets out of control quickly, bites the owner, bingo bango, young dogs free or dumped because few people know how to train or manage them. Unfortunately here in WA a few years ago, Malinois litters starting popping up everywhere. I don't really recall even seeing a Malinois advertised or a Malinois breeder even listed in WA prior to that. There were regular ads in the Quokka (free-to-advertise classified paper) and it seemed like every time you turned around, there was another new "breeder" advertising ("breeder" as in I have no idea whether they were BYB or registered breeders). As has been mentioned, they are most certainly NOT the dog for everyone, and usually need an experienced owner as they are such a high-drive dog. Thankfully the ads seemed to have dried up over the last year or so, but I shudder to think what the outcome may have been for many of those puppies when people realised they couldn't manage a dog of this breed.

I'm sick of us constantly being harassed by off-lead dogs that the owners (if they are even anywhere in sight) have no control over whatsoever. It's now at the stage that I won't walk her on weekends or during early mornings/late afternoons as that seems to be when these idiots like to parade the local streets with their dogs off-lead and also let them run riot in the local park. Thankfully I work part-time so can walk her several weekdays during the daytime, and I also tend to walk her at night during the week as well - but even that is becoming a problem, with off-lead dogs suddenly looming out of the darkness and you have no idea whether someone is with it or not. Our closest park is a sizeable football oval and fair enough if people want to exercise their dog off-lead there. However, if I am keeping to the footpath which is OUTSIDE the boundaries of the park and have my dog on-lead, I do not expect to have some idiot's dog come barrelling across from way over the other side of the oval and tearing straight towards us (the owner usually yells a few times but doesn't bother to move their lazy backside to actually DO anything about retrieving their mutt). These dogs are often acting in quite an aggressive fashion, or at the very least have little or no "dog manners" and will usually rush at my girl and get right in her face, which does NOT go down well. She's getting old now, but since being attacked a few years ago, she has become very defensive when another dog rush comes at us in that fashion. And to the owner - I don't give a rat's furry ar$e how many times you yell "oh, he/she's friendly" (oh really, with tail straight up in the air and hackles up as it comes at my dog?) - my dog does NOT like another dog rushing at her or getting "in her face" and she will react accordingly - and so will I, for that matter, as I now carry at least one or two defence methods to ward off these damn animals. I've actually crossed the road a couple of times to get away from some extremely aggressive dogs, which then sends the owners into hysterics as their dog then proceeds to run straight out into the road to follow us. Not my problem - I'm more concerned with getting my dog away from a potentially dangerous situation, and if the owner doesn't have sufficient control over their dog to either stop it running at us in the first place or having a reliable recall in place, then if their dog ends up in the middle of the road, that's the owner's problem.

I lived in New Zealand with my (now ex) husband for 5 years back in the late 80s/early 90s (he'd grown up there after his family emigrated from Scotland). We lived in the South Island, and I was absolutely horrified to find that it was quite an accepted practice for people to transport their dog in the boot of the car (and this was in a reasonably-sized city, not in a rural area). Most people had sedans, not station wagons or the 4WDs which are so prevalent these days and didn't want dog hair or mud on the back seat, so they just put the dog in the boot instead. One of his friends almost lost his GSD that way - completely forgot she was in the boot and left her in there for SIX HOURS. Thankfully it wasn't a hot day (relatively cool weather in summer compared to here) but by the time he remembered her, the dog was extremely distressed, dehydrated and was lucky to survive. Still didn't stop him or a lot of the other people we knew from doing it though. I told my husband not to ever even THINK of transporting our dog in that manner. I'm sure there were plenty of others who forgot the dog was there - I mean people have forgotten that their kids or dog were in the main cabin of the car with them, so how much more easily would it happen it you can't see the dog because it's in the boot!!!!!!

It was a horrific experience Diva - it took me months to get over it. For several weeks afterwards, I couldn't even take our girl for a walk - not just up that street, but anywhere at all - as I was terrified it would happen again. Our dog has never been the same again - she was always dominant with other females and boisterous when she played, but still friendly with other dogs, but after that attack, she would immediately go on the defensive as soon as she saw another dog running at us (which happens far too often for my liking, with owners who have no recall control over their dogs) and attempt to defend not just herself but me as well, bless her. To be blunt, I wanted the attacking dogs PTS, and I make no apology for that whatsoever - it was a totally unprovoked attack, and as I said, if either myself or my dog had ended up on the ground, we'd have been seriously injured, or worse. However, as there was no physical injury to myself or my dog, the ranger said the most they could do was give the owners a fine. What if it had been a child or an elderly person who happened to be walking their dog past that house at the time? I could barely defend myself and my dog, they would have stood no chance.