sandgrubber

Good to see someone taking concrete steps. You might want to re-post this in the In the News forum under the 'what can we do' thread. I started a collection of web links showing pit bull X's who would 'pass' under the standard and posted as http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/226097-pit-bull-xs-that-could-pass-and/ . Some of the posts in that thread, and my collection of links, may be useful (I realise that you specifically state that you do not want to include APBT descended dogs). Many of the links are to rescue dogs or family pets, and I'd guess the owners or organisations involved would have no problem with someone reproducing photos and information to fight a pernicious and stupid BS law. I was thinking of doing two collages . . .one of dogs who have NO pit bull blood but are endangered by the 'standard'. The other of dogs who have pit bull lines and would not be declared pit bull by the 'standard'.

Cosmolo, have you been able to find out any information regarding the standard and crossbreed dogs. Does the dog need to fit every point on the standard to be deemed as restricted? Or is there a certain percentage that the dog has to fit before it is accused of being restricted? I don't know if I have been looking in the wrong place, but I can't find anything. I also wonder about the Vet Cert part of the legislation. Is a vet able to state that a dog is a breed other than Amstaff. It is written so poorly, and vaguely, this doesn't seem clear to me. Can the vet certify that he honesty believes a dog to be a cross of certain breeds? If they are saying a council worker is able to make this decision, surely a vet is able to as well! Has anyone found any information about this. I have emailed asking the Minister and another MP, but still no reply......a week later, and time is ticking by.... So many of us with adopted dogs and cross breeds need the answers to these questions? According to the bill's sponsor, P.R. Hall (see http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/id/99 ): Section 20 of the charter act provides that a person must not be deprived of his or her property other than in accordance with law. A deprivation of property is permitted if the powers which authorise the deprivation are conferred by legislation or common law, are confined and structured rather than arbitrary or unclear, and are accessible to the public and formulated precisely. The large number of unanswered questions potentially invalidates the Law is under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. It may be worth filing a complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission . . . or at least giving them a call. It would be worth writing to Peter Hall, who sponsored the bill. Also to Mr Barber from Northern Metropolitan (http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/id/1680 ), who questioned would receive adequate public discussion or achieve adequate clarity in the discussion in the Daily Hansard, 30 August 2011. A phone call to Barber might be worth the time. He may be sympathetic, and in a position to a) direct you to advice; and b) use information about your situation to bring pressure to bare on the powers that be to clarify . . .or admit that clarity is not possible. Mr Hall has justified the standard cause one vet, one all breeds judge, and one council officer were involved in its formulation. He fails to mention that the Australian Veterinary Association came out strongly against the breed specific parts of the legislation, in part because it is not possible to unambiguously identify breed.

Perhaps, you might read instead of going off half-cocked. He was Refering to one of the cases in the article Tyra who was killed by four dogs in NSW in 2007. Hearing hoofbeats, thinking zebra? If he meant the NSW 2007 case, he should have mentioned that case. The recent Victoria case is what is on everyone's minds, and unless otherwise specified, is the point of reference, 'One of the cases in the article' . . . come on. Which article? There are two articles mentioned in this thread, one relating to the spotted tailed quoll and Peter Walsh, the other opens with reference to four year old Ayen Chol.

Spinosad based insecticides may help keep ticks out of your yard. Try a google search. They were recommended to me for use in the vineyard to kill a certain moth pest. I notice that the stuff is supposed to be effective against ticks, and is safe with mammals, in general (organic growers can use it on grapes).

Snake Catcher . . .good posts, thanks! Can you suggest any dog training programs that focus on creating snake aversion (or organise one)? I once tried to set up snake training sessions in WA using electronic collars and live reptiles. I couldn't find any snake people willing to let their snakes be used, even in enclosures that guaranteed the snake was safe. I am not convinced that training on blue tongue lizards protects against snakes, at least not 100% of the time, cause dogs can tell one person from another, so telling one species (or genus or family) of reptile from another should be trivial for them. Would be better to do aversion training with snakes . . . even better, with the snake species of concern in the local area.

black is dominant. Somatic mutations, as in Adrian2's link, could produce black from two yellow/gold/red dogs, and there may be some roundabout ways it could happen . . . but all in all, not bloody likely.

They could just as easily conclude that people with poorer mental and physical health, or those who suffer from pain, seek out the company of pets to provide social support, as suggested by the experimental data in McConnell et al. (2011). I agree. Correlation does not prove causation and often confuses effect and cause...or finds correlations between two effect of another, unnoticed, cause. I found the article while trying (with no success) to locate a study I remember hearing of that showed that 'elders' with pets lived longer than those without pets. Science brainwashing says you MUST not throw out evidence that goes against your biases. Us dog lovers are inclined to look for evidence that shows our dogs are good for us. But we shouldn't discard other evidence.

The human rights (as opposed to animal rights) side of this is probably better set forward in the testimony in the Vic Hansard testimony just before the Law was voted on http://www.parliamen...August_2011.pdf specifically p. 63, where the Hon (??) minister is trying to justify the legality of the provision, quote: This amendment engages the right to property in section 20 and the protection against retrospective criminal laws in section 27(1) of the charter act. Right to property (section 20) Section 20 of the charter act provides that a person must not be deprived of his or her property other than in accordance with law. A deprivation of property is permitted if the powers which authorise the deprivation are conferred by legislation or common law, are confined and structured rather than arbitrary or unclear, and are accessible to the public and formulated precisely. I'm not a lawyer and my reading skills are challenged by reading law. But I'd say you need to find and understand the Section 20 right to property and the rules against retrospective criminal laws to mount any sort of defense.

I agree, modern life in the 'burbs requires more restraint. Nostalgia and sorrow that it's so. It's a vicious cycle and dog attacks are part and parcel of the decline. People don't select dogs for social temperament. Owners rarely pts their own dogs when they show HA/DA problems or bother livestock. Some laugh it off or even encourage it. Dogs and kids don't get to play in the street. Dogs get fenced in the back yard and ignored. They howl, get destructive, some get mean. When they do 'get out', they don't know what to do, and some do bad things. Others merely get run over. You can still find pockets in the US where, regardless of the law, dogs live more-or-less free, but it's getting harder to find such places. My brother lives in one. His two rat terriers have their territories, which don't coincide with his property boundary, and the old girl feigns attack when an unfamiliar dog comes on property . . . but she doesn't do anything. Both dogs go with him when he goes running . . . he'll do miles in the nearby woods . . . he doesn't even bother to carry a leash. The neighbors dogs visit. No big deal. If they bothered my SIL's horses or otherwise caused problems, there would be words . . . In much of Europe, almost all yards have fences, and dogs are kept in yards, so QED, they are fenced in. But some do go visiting, and are allowed to do so. Archie the Labrador, in that memorable BBC story (dog takes train home without owner . . . duly noted by the railroad officials who called the owner rather than nabbing the dog for riding without a ticket) wasn't wandering. He was heading home, presumably cause he got bored waiting for his owner. I've lived more in Germany (outside Leipzig) and Austria (outside Vienna) than the UK. There, dogs are generally more welcome than kids, and it's not uncommon to find an dog off leash in a restaurant/pub setting. I walked my Lab cross daily in open space, all around the 'dorf' . . . no leash needed . . and people were totally accepting. Sure, a big Rotti guard dog will be kept on leash if it's walked outside the compound. Also spent some time in less-developed countries, where guard dogs are kept by the rich -- and are often tied or fenced -- but the street mongrels (which are coming to be recognised as land races) are left to forage where they can. Leash laws are a necessary evil. But they are still evil. I hope there will always be some pockets where the ACO is either subtle, or too overworked to apply the law, and where people can keep the peace on their own.

I must have marked >10,000 papers in my career as a University lecturer (I'm retired now). If I used the standard you propose, half the papers I marked would have been considered plagiarism. If the Vic stardard were a university paper, I would have given a warning that sources need to be acknowledged, and the text is running close to the source. I might even have said that non-acknowledgement can be considered plagiarism. But the University officialdom would not have been pleased if a formal charge of plagiarism were brought . . . trying to enforce such a standard would have swamped the system. You may get further in trying to trace the diagrams, which may be taken from a copyrighted source and may infringe on copyright law. (By the pathetically low standards demanded by some Australian Universities, this would have gotten 65 to 75% as a paper . . . it borrowed from at least three sources and bothered to cut some figures into the text in a way that showed some understanding of the concepts under discussion. Grammar and punctuation are generally ok.) The authors of the legislation were in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they improvised too much and showed original thought, as we encourage students to do, they would have gotten blasted for making things up.

I doubt you'll get anywhere with this line. Looking at the two documents (Vic Breed Standard and UKC Standard), I'd say one was modeled after the other, but not copied from it. The 'climbing ability' part comes from the US version, but isn't copied word for word. The head description borrows more from the US version, but again, changes some words. Vic Standard The American Pit Bull Terrier is a medium sized dog and is strongly built with well defined muscles. The breed is noted for its climbing ability and subsequent strength in its hindquarters. The overall outline of the breed indicates it to be slightly longer in length (point of shoulder to buttocks) than height (withers to ground). Bitches may be slightly longer than males. A distance from withers to the elbow and the elbow to the ground is generally equal. The head is proportionate to the dog. Viewed from above, the general shape of the head is that of a blunt wedge, large and broad. Viewed from the side, the skull and muzzle are on parallel plains separated by a moderately deep stop. Arches over the eyes are well defined but not pronounced (refer figure 3). Here's the first para of the UK Standard The American Pit Bull Terrier is a medium-sized, solidly built, short-coated dog with smooth, well-defined musculature. This breed is both powerful and athletic. The body is just slightly longer than tall, but bitches may be somewhat longer in body than dogs. The length of the front leg (measured from point of elbow to the ground) is approximately equal to one-half of the dog’s height at the withers. The head is of medium length, with a broad, flat skull, and a wide, deep muzzle. Ears are small to medium in size, high set, and may be natural or cropped. The relatively short tail is set low, thick at the base and tapers to a point. The American Pit Bull Terrier comes in all colors and color patterns except merle. This breed combines strength and athleticism with grace and agility and should never appear bulky or muscle-bound or fine-boned and rangy. Above all else, the APBT must have the functional capability to be a catch dog that can hold, wrestle (push and pull) and breathe easily while doing its job. Balance and harmony of all parts are critical components of breed type. and the US Standard The American Pit Bull Terrier is a medium-sized, solidly built, short-coated dog with smooth, well-defined musculature. This breed is both powerful and athletic. The body is just slightly longer than tall, but bitches may be somewhat longer in body than dogs. The length of the front leg (measured from point of elbow to the ground) is approximately equal to one-half of the dog's height at the withers. The head is of medium length, with a broad, flat skull, and a wide, deep muzzle. Ears are small to medium in size, high set, and may be natural or cropped. The relatively short tail is set low, thick at the base and tapers to a point. The American Pit Bull Terrier comes in all colors and color patterns. This breed combines strength and athleticism with grace and agility and should never appear bulky or muscle-bound or fine-boned and rangy.

Cosmolo - under the Q&A for the DPI site, given that your dogs are registered already, if someone dobs them in as a pitbull type and the authorised person agrees, then, when your rego expires, it will be up to the council whether or not you have to register as a restricted breed. Mum to Emma - the restrictions on pit bull types are a lot more than just muzzled when walked. And yes - lots of greyhound people are against this and have lobied for dogs that pass an assessment to be allowed to go outside without a muzzle (in Vic GAP greyhounds never need to be muzzled). The information posted on DPI doesn't specify what the dogs need to have been registered as. Being already registered with the Council as non-dangerous dogs may not be sufficient. A vigalante ACO may read the regs to mean they need to have been previously registered as a Dangerous Dog for prior registration to count. The Law is badly written, and needs to be challenged.

READ! Ayen Chol was watching TV in her own home. The dog that killed her wandered in. It amazes me that ALL pit bull looking dogs are condemned, yet we have yet to see a photo of the dog in question. It may well have been a pig dog of some sort that would have passed the Vic breed 'standard'. And the owner may yet get off scott free.

I think that doing a careful study of WHO to target and publishing contact details is probably more helpful than form letters. That tactic is much used by the US Tea Party, not to mention right-to-lifers, anti-gay groups, etc., and proven to be effective. I don't know Victoria and have been out of Oz for a couple years, or I'd do it. I also think that letter writing from a template is better than nothing, but a good legislative aid will notice that the letters all look the same and not read them. Sincere statements of your personal situation, if you have a dog who might fit the 'standard' are worth doing, and cc'ing to papers. I wouldn't worry about writing long letters (all the templates I've seen on DOL are, in my opinion, unnecessarily long). The office staff is just going to put the comments into piles and count the numbers in most cases. A short, pithy letter has a better chance of getting read. The pollies may not be the sharpest tools in the case, but they will have already heard all the arguments, and in most cases, already made up their minds. But they will want to avoid backlash from a small army of dog owners. The other thing that badly needs doing is starting a legal fund. It is quite possible that the Vic Law can be overturned. Australia doesn't have a Bill of Rights, but both Common Law and various other codes of law are sure to have prohibitions of arbitrary seizure of property. In my reading there is no question that a Law that leaves enforcement to inappropriately trained people based on an arbitrary, appearance-based code is arbitrary. For this, it may be helpful to identify a good test case, eg, a sweet tempered SBT x whose sire and dam are known (even better if they are alive and DNA swabs can be taken to prove parentage), and look for donations to fight a test case.

If laws are modeled after the Vic law, the 'new dog' will be a pit bull X that doesn't look like a pit bull. Eg, pit bull x mastiff or pit bull x akita or pit bull x English bulldog. I haven't seen any pictures of the dog who killed Ayen Chol, but it wouldn't surprise me if he would have survived the 'standard'. APPEARANCE DOES NOT PREDICT BEHAVIOUR! Are any of the breed clubs getting active? The SBT is probably the most common breed in Australia (most puppy registrations in 2010), and there must be as many unregistered SBT's as registered. I'd think there is some potential political clout there.

Signature picking on Labradors blows your cover.

but it doesn't always work that way . . . these researchers seem to have set out to find pets a benefit and found the opposite Gerontology. 2005 Jan-Feb;51(1):40-7. Pet ownership and health in older adults: findings from a survey of 2,551 community-based Australians aged 60-64. Parslow RA, Jorm AF, Christensen H, Rodgers B, Jacomb P. Source Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia. [email protected] Abstract BACKGROUND: It is commonly assumed that owning a pet provides older residents in the community with health benefits including improved physical health and psychological well-being. It has also been reported that pet owners are lower on neuroticism and higher on extraversion compared with those without pets. However, findings of research on this topic have been mixed with a number of researchers reporting that, for older people, there is little or no health benefit associated with pet ownership. OBJECTIVE: To identify health benefits associated with pet ownership and pet caring responsibilities in a large sample of older community-based residents. METHODS: Using survey information provided by 2,551 individuals aged between 60 and 64 years, we compared the sociodemographic attributes, mental and physical health measures, and personality traits of pet owners and non-owners. For 78.8% of these participants, we were also able to compare the health services used, based on information obtained from the national insurer on the number of general practitioner (GP) visits they made over a 12-month period. RESULTS: Compared with non-owners, those with pets reported more depressive symptoms while female pet owners who were married also had poorer physical health. We found that caring for a pet was associated with negative health outcomes including more symptoms of depression, poorer physical health and higher rates of use of pain relief medication. No relationship was found between pet ownership and use of GP services. When we examined the personality traits of pet owners and carers, we found that men who cared for pets had higher extraversion scores. Our principal and unexpected finding, however, was that pet owners and carers reported higher levels of psychoticism as measured by the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that pet ownership confers no health benefits for this age group. Instead, those with pets have poorer mental and physical health and use more pain relief medication. Further, our study suggests that those with pets are less conforming to social norms as indicated by their higher levels of psychoticism. Copyright © 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

Inbreeding isn't a simple topic. I was amazed to see the Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog come out with a 'not necessarily' answer to the 'Is In breeding necessarily bad?' question. See http://pedigreedogse...lways-mean.html The answer has to do with how much genetic burden the sire and dam carry. If there are some nasty recessives lurking, or some improbable polygenetic combinations becoming more probable through concentration of certain alleles, inbreeding can be quite bad. But then, in theory (using COIs calculated back to the founding dog population), if the whole breed descended from a single male and female, all breeding is close inbreeding . . . even if sire and dam are distant sixth cousins. And it gets more complex if you go to some specific place. For example, genetic work on the Spitz done in the US may show low degree of inbreeding, but if you go to someplace island somewhere, you may find a few hundred Spitz' who have all descended from a few dogs imported in the 1970s.

Try the 'can I talk to your supervisor' routine with Royal Canin. If anyone is going to know the ropes, someone there will. But the person you talked with may be clueless. I think the only way you'll get a shipment in is if the AQIS inspection system isn't working. Not impossible, but if they're using Beagles to find illegal foodstuffs, you haven't got a chance . (Just guessing).

Sometimes you get the same result cause 'the Ranger' is the APO, but also has to enforce fire regs and verge planting restrictions, do inspections on fence/boundary complaints, deal with illegal dumping of rubbish, and do a hundred other things. When/where I lived in WA, the pay for Rangers wasn't good, and the turnover was high. Most of the staff had only been on for a year or two. Are such people going to get a thrill out of one more set of laws to enforce, especially where it risks stepping into conflict situations? Bet your boots, they'll avoid it. Unless the Council actively pushes, and puts some $$$ behind the push, there's a good chance the laws will be ignored.

I grew up in semi-rural places where almost no one fenced their dogs. I remember one neighbor who had a pair of rather vicious guard dogs, but otherwise, dogs mostly stayed home, but were free to wander, and leashes were hardly used. There were a few problem dogs. I remember a great dane that liked to hump kids (hard to forget) and an epileptic poodle . . . also a daschund that used to enter people's homes through cat doors, and certain dogs who turned over garbage cans and got sick eating the goodies therein. I don't think anyone did obedience training . . . and most of the dogs weren't very obedient. But they were socialised. Dogs are not fenced in most village areas in the world, including the UK (see wonderful story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4195198.stm or notice the way dogs show up on Doc Martin). I think dog problems are part and parcel of the crumbling of settled cultures in which neighbours have learned to live with eachother, not always trusting one another, but respecting certain boundaries. Intolerance of vicious wandering dogs, with no help from the dog catcher, but perhaps some use of a 22, is part of such a culture. Ok, ok, I'm a grumpy old woman.

Someone needs to do a good doco comparing true pit bull X's, which seem to be LEGAL in Viic, so long as they don't fit the standard, l to mutts that look like pit bulls (but aren't) and are condemned under 'the standard'.

If that's karma at it's best, I'd hate to see it at its worst! Horrible story.

It strongly suggests that how the standard will be applied is up to local authorities. From what I can figure out, wandering dogs don't get appeals, so if your pedigree AmStaff gets out, it may be PTS without notification. If the Ranger involved is responsible, and your dog has tags or is chipped, your dog has a chance, but not a guarantee. Below are a few bits about the appeals process, including, most importantly, phone numbers (bold, red italics below). Looks like the procedure is to IMMEDIATELY request the reasons from Council, and use council's reasons as the basis for appeal. 18) My dog has been declared a restricted breed, what do I do now? The Authorised Officer must notify you in writing that your dog has been declared a restricted breed. At this point, you have the right to request from Council the reason why your dog has been declared a restricted breed. You can appeal the declaration that your dog a restricted breed dog by appealing this decision at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal within 28 days of receiving the declaration. Phone (03) 9628 9830 or Toll Free 1800 133 055 (country callers only). ... If VCAT overturns the decision your dog will NOT be a restricted breed dog, but if VCAT uphold the decision your will be a restricted breed dog. 20) I have DNA testing that outlines what breed my dog is, what do I do with this? Provide this to the Council officer for consideration but the officer is not obliged to make a decision based on such laboratory evidence alone. He will use the approved standard to make a final decision as to declaration of your dog as a restricted breed type. You have a right to appeal the declaration at VCAT and this is where your legal representative would use such DNA evidence.

??? shame on councils ??? A couple posts have said this. It's a state law. The councils have no choice in the matter. What's the Ranger going to say when someone brings their dog in to be PTS because the Vic state law says the animal has no right to live?