Staranais

I got from the initial post that the dog has a reputation for not respecting females, and has lifted his lip to this girl already. This could be completely innocent behaviour, or could be a dog that's going to nail her if she does anything it perceives as disrespectful. I'd rather err on the side of caution & have someone take a look at the dog in person than try to work it all out over the internet.

No petshops that sell animals are good. But some are far better than others. And you do need a job. So I say, apply for the job, go for the interview, then ask them about their policies about purchasing & rehoming puppies. Be polite - you can say that it's an issue that concerns you since they talk about it a lot on your course, for example. If the answers about where the pups come from & who they are sold to are acceptable to you (not ideal, but acceptable), and you think the boss is a good person & open to ideas, then I'd say go for the job & try to change them from inside. It will never be ideal. But if it's a typical shoddy pet store, then you could possibly also do a lot of good there, if the boss will listen to your ideas. Such as to get the shop to do home checks before selling animals, get them to only buy large breed puppies with hip scores, trying to persuade them to work in partnership with the local shelter to sell pound animals not BYB animals, getting them to desex the animals before selling them (or selling them with a desex voucher included), or to only taking BYB animals to sell for free (i.e., don't pay the BYB for them so the BYB doesn't make a profit & isn't as tempted to do it again).

Go GSDCA!

I have no idea what the situation as to liability is in off leash dog parks. Perhaps it depends if witnesses are sure that one dog actually attacked the other (versus a play session turning into a mutual fight?) Now, if an offleash dog approaches your onleash dog in an onleash area, then I believe they are liable for damages since they're breaking the law - no matter who starts the fight.

That is very sad. My girl has never wandered. But god forbid she one day escapes the yard and a council officer decides she looks like she's "likely" to attack someone...

I want a pony! :p More seriously though, I like getting ribbons or sashes & have always envied people that win the higher classes & get dog food. If you don't like the particular brand, you can always give it away to charity & feel virtuous. Petrol vouchers would be good too, I've never seen that done before but think it's a great idea. Or vouchers for pet stores or other dog related places, since then you can pick what you want. Dog toys are no use to me since I have my own particular ones I like to use. Same with random junk - I've never seen anyone win a plate or a platter or umbrella or mug, but I don't know how thrilled I'd be to get one. Perhaps wine?

That is very sad. Who knows what set the dog off? Could just have been prey drive - babies move funny, make funny noises, can confuse dogs sometimes who don't realise they're really human beings. Sad accident for everyone. The dog should have been kept out of the room, but who hasn't made a mistake before and left a door open, or not closed it fully? I know I have. Poor little girl.

Go Alison!

You'll find it hard to fix the issue when she's doing this. If she won't stop, then I'd personally approach the issue by instigating a working time cue, and teach him that when he hears the cue, the only way to get high value rewards is through working with you. Same as we do with a high prey drive dog. When dog hears the cue to work, she learns that a high value reward is available, but ONLY through obeying her owner. ETA: if this were my dog, I would also correct her for it. It is not acceptable for her to beg off strangers - it's bad manners, & unsafe - goodness knows what they might decide to feed her! But I don't think it's fair for you to correct your dog for begging if he's allowed or even encouraged to beg when your mum is around. Perhaps you need to correct your mum instead.

No - but it means another org could apply for FCI membership. The sooner the better I think Erny. Other influences are steering the ANKC's ship it seems to me. What skin off the ANKC's nose is retaining titles on pedigrees unless they are trying to save costs on printer ink..........doesn't make sense from an ANKC perspective why they would entertain the idea as a good thing unless they are trying to look after another organisations agenda for the wrong reasons Can we really trust the ANKC as the sole official registery and canine administrator to do the right thing??? Although I love the idea of an alternate FCI associated working dog registry in theory, I really do, my concern is that by forming another registry, we will lose any power to influence the AnKC. And only the AnKC have the political influence (through sheer numbers!) to influence the councils. The issue is bigger than keeping titles on pedigrees, I think. The issue is the AnKC's attitude towards schutzhund and other bite sports. If the AnKC stand up and proclaim that schutzhund is legitimate, I think city councils & state government will listen. If the AnKC say schutzhund dogs are dangerous, and just trying to form our own registry to get away with "attack training", then I think we're all in big trouble. Better we stay with the AnKC and try to influence them (if we get enough AnKC members writing to them, they will listen!) than abandon them and have no influence over them. JMO.

Me neither. Mallies are high maintenance & high energy, even the showline ones tend to have lots more go than your average pet.

That's one of the big differences between small & large animal practice, I find. In smallies, you don't often have the owners watching you doing surgery on their animals. Whereas I've seen a cow caesarian where we had the entire farm crew & their wives & kids hanging over the fence watching us in awe as we grubbed round inside the cow.

SAR dogs are the same. If my girl is on the scent and I'm doing something dumb like calling her off or pulling her the wrong way, I want her to do her utmost to drag her daft owner in the right direction, not just "submit" and follow me! One of the advanced trainers told me that the handler is the boss of the team when the dog is not following a scent, but when the dog is following a scent, then the dog is the boss of the team. That division of labour works for us.

Wow, the first to suggest Greyhound, I don't know much about them beside many usually suggesting the breed Mot sure what they are like as most come from the adoption program?? Love Ridgie look but know nothing about them Greyhound is a great idea! My dog boards at GAP when I go on holiday & all the GAP greyhounds I have met there are all laid back & lovely. Need far less exercise than you'd think, they seem to be content to lie on the couch most of the day. Gentle souls. Lovely short coats too. Only drawback is that apparently you can't really let them off leash in unenclosed areas, since if they see something to chase they can be out of earshot before you can call them back.

Or perhaps she is just being responsible & researching her breeds to make sure she gets exactly what she wants before she buys one. Staffies might be a breed to look into. They're great with kids, smart enough as long as you motivate them appropriately, short coated and clean, and although they love & need exercise they don't need as much stimulation as a true working breed would.

All I can think of is that we could refuse to register our dogs with the AnKC, they may take some notice then, but since there's no alternative registry that's pretty much shooting ourselves in the foot. Perhaps the unregistered mally people have the right idea.

I agree with Shell. Until this is resolved, I would be crating this dog when you are alone in the house.

Same as you but clearer, by degrees. What is presently "under consideration" is what I don't know. Are they considering upgrading to FULL Membership, or are they considering dumping their Membership all together? I have no idea really, but I'd be thinking the second. Since when I wrote, I asked DogsVic if they were FCI members & said that if they were I thought they were contravening FCI regulations, and they came back & just told me they were "considering" their FCI membership. Yup you're right, I've rechecked my email & it's October. Letters in by October please people! Sorry.

According to the email I've just received from DogsVictoria "The ANKC is currently considering its position as an Associate member of the FCI." So, from that I interpret they are currently FCI members, but may not want to be in future? Apparently the whole matter is going to be discussed at the AnKC meeting in Nov, so I presume we have until then to sent in letter of protest.

Me too. The FCI have apparently recognised Mondioring in the last few years. Wouldn't it be fabulous if we could get the AnKC to toe the FCI line and sanction Mondio trials? I have asked DogsVic & the FCI if the AnKC are members of the FCI, just to get it from the horse's mouth, but no reply so far from either.

Bad internets! I haven't read any of his works, or even heard of him. But seems to me that fear is an emotion, aggression is a behaviour. So fear aggression isn't a contradiction to me. It's merely aggressive behaviour (biting, fighting) that is caused by the feeling of fear. You might think that it is natural for a fearful dog to run away or freeze and not fight. But if a dog has somehow learned in the past that attacking a threat is the best response when it is scared, and that running or freezing are unsafe options, then the dog will learn to attack things when it feels fearful. Even when it can flee from a situation, if it has already learned that attacking the threat is the best or only way to get the fear to go away, it will continue to attack and not run when it is scared. Dogs do what works. This is what I have observed, anyway. A long time ago I met a pitbull who was trained to be a "guard dog" by this method. She was a sweet and smoochy dog in the house, but if you chained her in her yard, she would do her best to eat any stranger who approached her, since she learned she had to get people before they got her. Freezing or fleeing when people appeared had only ever gotten her beaten, biting was the only thing that worked to get them to leave her alone. So she was very proactive about eating strange people (especially men) who entered her yard. It wasn't pretty.

Yes, I was going to bring that point up as well.

I would love to get into this when my pup's legs are healthier!

Why on earth shouldn't Erny ask about where to address her letter on the forum, or ask who the members of AnKC are? She's not a working dog person - she's doing us a favour by writing to the AnKC. If this is how non-working dog people who offer to write letters to the AnKC are treated, I won't be surprised if we end up with very few non-working dog supporters. And the fewer supporters we have making noise to the AnKC, the more likely the AnKC will steamroller this decision through, since they will be right in thinking the majority of their members don't give a toss about it. Why on earth would Erny have a "hidden agenda"? I'm lost.

In that case, I'd say terrier or sighthound. Although I've never seen my malinois move faster than the day she found a rat in the house!