sandgrubber

Depends a lot on what you are hunting and what sort of dog you want. Eg, some are better for flushing game, others for retrieving, some better for water, others for dryland. Some people like long hair, others want only short; some breeds are more headstrong, others softer. Within the breed you'll also find great ranges . .. eg, some Labbies are more built for running and jumping, while others are more suited to swimming and beating through heavy bush.

YOu think the Australian system is bad. Here in California, the county (read council) registration system generously cross registered the two dogs I brought with me from Oz. . . then the Registration company sent me a bill for $21 for each dog to continue the registration. Apparently they soak you for an annual fee to keep your dog on the database. Don't you love the free market.

Anybody else have strange dreams about their dogs? A couple nights ago I dreamed that I looked at Bonza's belly and was amazed to see that she had four rows of teats . . . giving her a total of 20. In the dream I was surprised that I hadn't noticed them before, and was little worried that someone was going to say it was the result of inbreeding. [Odd notion: She has only one repeat name on her 5 generation pedigree. The repeat is in gen 5].

Get involved with council. As permanent residents, you are in a position to see that the Ranger patrol gets its numbers doubled during the holidays.

Why not just leave the dog inside?

When I was breeding dogs in WA, I had a policy against selling to renters, which I sometimes broke. Eg, I was happy to sell to a vet school student whose parents were willing and able to look after the dog if necessity arose. I sold to someone who was the head corporate lawyer for a multinational (they eventually moved to Canada, but took their dogs with them). At least in Perth metro, where a large fraction of the housing stock is pretty new, dog-friendly rentals are few and far between. Difficulty finding housing is a pretty common reason for dog abandonment. I seldom had to apply the rule. Most of the puppy buyers owned. . . . many had waited until they got their own house to get a dog. I generally told renters I wouldn't sell to them without a signed letter from the landlord showing a lease for a year or more, and that a puppy would be allowed. I never had a single renter come back with such a letter.

On the other hand a Staffy X Lab will almost always be listed as a Lab X . . . to improve chances of adoption. The high frequency SBTs and SBT-X's makes sense because: 1. the SBT is one of the most common pedigree dogs in Australia (#1 in puppy registrations in 2010) and 2. Where I've lived in WA, the entire males I had to fend off when my girls came in season were mostly SBT's or SBT-like. Lots of people who get staffies seem to like 'em with balls on . . . and SBT's tend to be clever at escaping / breaking in (especially chain link fences). p.s. I've spent many hours looking at pound and shelter listings . . . but it would be good to be able to say something stronger than "my impression based on looking at pound listings". Social data are almost always inaccurate . . . but collected data tend to be more accurate than anecdotes.

Don't panic. Lets assume the rat was poisoned. If your dogs weigh, say 10 times more than the rat, and some of the poison has gone through the rat, there's little chance of a lethal dose, even if the dog ate the whole rat. Sure, watch, be cautious, try to figure out if there is rat poison around and what its effects are. Most rat poisons are slow, cause rats are smart, and the pest control industry finds that they'll learn to avoid anything that kills fast. Even in the worst case, you have time for a measured response. On the other hand: Rat poison is extremely cruel. There is much more danger of dogs finding the baits than eating poisoned rats. Trapping is both more humane, and safer for your dogs.

Lovely vid. Thanks for posting. Tawnies are great. All that hissing reminds me of a long-forgotten event. On our bush walk, one of my Labs brought a chick to me (unharmed). Apparently, crows got to the nest. CALM had big fines for keeping wildlife and I ended out turning it over to someone with permits for wildlife rescue. Wish I could have kept track of the little guy.

Add boarding kennels to the question. They are more likely to be in bush areas, and very likely to be full over the summer holidays, when fires often get out of control. I once tried to work on organised evacuation plans in a WA kennel area. No one was enthusiastic. All kennels seem to have their own ad hoc plans, which may or may not work. Ok. I'm a poor sales person. I hope someone else can do a better job of recognising the problem and getting a good response plan implemented.

In some cases sure but society in Australia is very geared towards pets we have some of the highest rates of pet/ dog owners world wide. Families often have dogs and have friends with dogs I'd say it's more personal experience and exposure that leads to these behaviors not patterns and cartoons. Those images wouldn't have been created if there wasn't a call for it. That's like saying teen pregnancy has nothing to do with media focus on sex. There's huge demand for love. Both human love and the kind of love that only dogs can give. But kids are being sold the gratification side without the full instruction manual. The 'puppy' image as propagated by commercial channels isn't troubled by the fact that throwing your arms around the neck of some dogs is going to earn you a nasty bite on the face.

Kids' puppy fever is generated by story books, puppy patterns on their bedsheets, TV shows, Snoopy cartoons, and a long social tradition that seems to say 'a kid has a right to have a puppy' . . .'happiness is a warm dog' . . . etc.. It would be good if more effort were directed to stamping out the 'puppy love' myth in places where canine reality has gotten harsh.

Many DOL'r, including me, use the argument that pedigree dogs are less likely to end up in shelters than BYB dogs or DD's. Many of us have images of shelters overpopulated by one type of dog or another. I have a sense that some breed rescue groups are much more active than others . . . perhaps due to higher rates of people buying the breed image without understanding breed characteristics. I'd love to know the facts. The only data I've been able to find is LA county data, which shows a huge number of bull breeds/bull breed X's (40 to 45% of all pound dogs) . . . and a spike in Chihuahuas a couple years after the Beverly Hills Chihuahua movie came out. Has anyone seen shelter data that keeps track of dogs by type, if not breed?

Similar scene in my younger days . . . right down to the Labrador and the Basset seeking out kids. But things have changed. It's one thing to have a free range dog when Mum stays home most of the time and you have a quarter acre block. It's a lot more tricky when both parents work, or Mum is a working single mum, and Dad lives elsewhere, school yards are fenced and not so many oldies are out gardening, and, thanks to urban infill, the 1/4 acre has become 300 or 400 sq m. KIds do a lot less wandering too, and the dogs can't get their exercise by tagging along with the kids or trying to join in the soccer game in the park. Education sounds much better than law enforcement, but how? where? what? who's going to pay for it? It's going to take more than handing out pamphlets or putting up a website. How do you find people with mita's ability to read the big dog and turn bluff aggression into wags, cuddles and slobber. How do you get them employed through a Civil Service system and pay them adequately to keep them working. It would be require a very clever programmer to create a computer game that realistically captured dog body language for major dog types / breeds and allowed people to learn to deal with them through play . . . and the market probably wouldn't accept the liability (what if the real world LGD doesn't behave like the simulated dog and someone gets attacked? Do this result in a law suit?). Sorry to be pessimistic, but I don't see things improving without much more involvement on the part of dog owners . . . and a lot more social pressure against dog ownership by people whose lifestyles don't leave time and space for a dog.

Agreed. If anyone is to blame for the deterioration of the human-canine bond, I'd say it's dog owners. When and where I grew up most dogs were free to roam. There were problems (turned over rubbish bins, a daschund who went through cat doors and raided kitty food, an epileptic dog who scared the pants of us kids . . . etc.), but not life threatening . . . because dogs were socialized, and an a-social dog wandering would have resulted in the owners being verbally attacked by their neighbours. . . or their dogs getting shot. It's not like that any more. Fewer people home during the day. People move more and don't know their neighbours, or the neighbours dogs. More poorly-socialised dogs dumped in yards with inadequate fences . . . just read the General Forum. Dog owners are forever complaining about the wandering, unsocial neighborhood dogs. It may only be a few percent of the dog population, but they sure make life miserable for everyone else. It's not fair to expect the Rangers to mop up this mess. Where I lived in WA the rangers had low wages and got stuck with most of the Council chores that required going out on the street, including policing verge plantings/obstructions, checking that people had cleared fire lines, and handling a wide range of neighbours complaints. Turnover was high. If you want quality dog services in your community, you must get involved . . . and you and your neighbours must be willing to see a small increase in their rates. It's not cheap to run a quality dog pound and hire an crew of experienced and well qualified dog catchers.

I would not trust an aggressive escape artist with a radio collar containment system for long periods of time, especially if DA. What happens if some other dog decides to come visit? Or the batteries fail? Also, I'd inquire whether the rangers will accept it.

Sad . . .and disgusting. I wonder what, if anything, is being done to crack down on the secondary culprits . . . the scumbags betting on dogfights, the locals who helped in the operation.

Sad to see a big dog die young, and away from home. We don't know much here. Did the dog die of capsicum spray, or something else? Or did the capsicum bring on something latent, like a bad heart? Did it escape due to seriously inadequate fencing or carelessness . . . or some fluke accident that was hard to prevent? Was it aggressively menacing a woman and child in their back yard? Or perhaps being playful, and slobbering abundantly, in a manner that would be frightening to the average person? Was the dog well socialised and given adequate care? How did it behave around strangers? Given that some members of the press are as irresponsible as some dog owners, I can understand why the council is being tight with information. Given the superficial similarity to the Ayen Chol situation, I can see why animal control called in the police. It does sound like the owner is pretty aggressive.

Here are the rules . . . download the 'dogs' .pdf for the full list. Sizes in sq. meters. There are further restrictions about enclosures, doorway access, etc. Sounds reasonable/generous to me . . . though I think 9 large show dogs or greyhounds on a 300 sq m property might be excessive! Companion dogs 0 to 300 1 dog up to 10 kg per dwelling unit without Logan City Council approval in a mature aged living facility or retirement village Domestic Dog(s) 0 to 300 1 dog with Logan City Council approval 301 to 499 1 dog without Logan City Council approval or 2 dogs with Logan City Council approval 500 to 599 2 dogs without Logan City Council approval 600 to 2,000 2 dogs without Logan City Council approval or up to 4 dogs with Logan City Council approval 2,001 to 80,000 3 dogs without Logan City Council approval or 4 with Logan City Council approval 80,000+ 4 dogs without Logan City Council approval or up to 9 dogs with Logan City Council approval (e.g. working dogs) Foster carers (see more information over) All properties Up to 9 dogs for a determined length of time with Logan City Council approval Recreation dogs (such as greyhounds, breeders, show dogs) All properties Up to 9 dogs with Logan City Council approval, subject to standards and membership of approved bodies

Do not use a heating pad designed for humans. They are far too hot; likely to drive mum out of the whelping box. Veterinary heat pads are designed to equilibrate at ~37 to 39C and feel almost cool to touch.

I did the friends route on the first litter. But never used newspaper thereafter. I find newspaper to be very messy, hard to clean up. If you shred it it seems like a petshop . . . and it gets all over the place. If you don't shred it it gets slick and makes it hard for the puppies to get their feet under them and crawl. If you can't afford vetbed (or equivalent), I'd go for old beach towels in preference to newspapers.

I'd guess, like most things relating to immune function, it's complicated. I don't like pigs ears cause they are expensive and my dogs gobble them down as though they were steak. I could see how that might cause some problems with choking, gagging, or worse. But if your dog has lead a fairly normal dog life, including burying bones in the garden, digging them up, and ingesting a wide variety of decomposed and stinky found treasures, it seems unlikely that salmonella from a pigs ear is going to cause a lot of problems.

Did you use a vet who knows what they are doing? I once lost three pups from a litter of 10 in C section done by a novice vet. Talking to other vets, I think it happened due to 1) application of a strong painkiller before the pups were taken out, which depressed their respiratory function; and 2) poor tying of cords . . . they all bled through their navels.

And if that doesn't work, add a little perfume . . . or ammonia . . . depending on you emotional state. I don't really hate cats, but I hate the fact that people think it's ok to let them roam.

How about asking your council if they can loan you a cat trap and sending the buggers to the pound! Cats, like dogs, should not be allowed to wander.