sandgrubber

I'd expect the cost of importing a Fila would be close to $10k . . . if you combine airfare and quarantine fees. Are you saying someone imported this dog and is not keeping it in small confines with poor care. What a wanker! Given that almost no one in Australia has ever seen a Fila and they do look like other molosser breeds (but a true-to-breed-standard Fila is much more HA than the average mastiff), seems more likely that your friend purchased some mastiff cross dressed up as a Fila for sex appeal. Dogos have been in Australia since before the ban so there will still be a few of them hanging around.

How many Fila Brasilieros have you seen coming into Australia in the last several years? Or . . .jeez, I've forgotten the spelling . . Doggie Argentineo? I suppport import bans on macho breeds . . and think they can work. Given the high cost of quarantine these days, it's feasible to do a real check on the breed of the dog to be imported, and not practical to have a go at importing something that is likely to get bounced . . . or destroyed once it is imported.

There but for fortune, go you and I, My first Labbie, a rescue, loved kids, but would bite anyone who approached her anal sphincter (aka a##-hole). Vets had to muzzle her to take her temperature. I once heard a growl when a toddler was near. Guess what. He was trying to examine the little hole under her tail. Nothing happened, other than the kid being told 'NO !!!!!!!!!!'. If I'd been distracted by a the kid's mother wanting to pet my puppy, that NO!!!!! might have been delayed and the kid might have gotten a good bite. I don't think there's a breed message here . . . just that kids require supervision, especially around unknown dogs. Most dogs will growl before biting a kid. I'd guess the mum wasn't tuned in. I admit, I hold prejudice against single mums with multiple kids and suspect that the 'plaintiff', in this case, has a lot to hide.

This if facetious. Flame if you like. Maybe we need owner specific legislation. Eg, make people prove they are not a bogan before they can buy/register dogs of a certain class :D.

I saw a 'bouncy castle' the other day in the form of a Dalmatian . . . the local fire dept also has a mailbox in the form of a Dali.

I don't see anything funny about this. Bad reporting, as usual. But I feel for the people who got bitten. How about a law that makes it possible to sue a journo for misidentification of breed. That would reduce the newspaper pitt bull population. That said, in this case it looks like the Parramatta dog (see photos and text posted in the Dogs Attack 4 People thread) was a pit bull and the police are pursuing banned breed charges against the owner of the dogs in the shopping center incident. If they were all pitties it going to end out as a major jump in support for BSL

No. There is no single founding Lab. As best as people can figure out there were one to two hundred lesser St John's dogs imported from Canada to England ~ 1850 to 1900. There were many Labrador lines by 1915, some of them much more important than others. Not all were pure bred from the original St Johns dog stock . . . it's likely that many, or even most, were cross breeds who were back crossed. I guess Bolo would be considered the first peripotent sire, and he would probably show up on the pedigrees of many leading labs more than one time . . . if you took the pedigree back 20 generations or so. He carried chocolate, and some think he is ancestral to all chocolate Labs. So is this dog in all the pedigrees of todays labs?

I came across an interesting bio-pic of Dual CH Banchory Bolo, 1915-1927, one of the most famous Labradors of yore. Found it interesting that a dog so revered in field lines could have such a checkered history . . . and was almost PTS (in those days they said 'destroyed' ) a couple times for behaving badly. http://www.lorkenfarms.com/banchory_bolo.htm clipping a few bits from the article . . . Dual FC-CH Banchory Bolo was the first dog to earn a dual championship by winning both the bench Championship CH as well as becoming a Field Trial Champion in England. Each of his litters produced either a Field Champion or a Show Champion. . . . Bolo came to Lady Howe in 1918, when he was a bit more than two years old. Heartbroken about the loss of her first Labrador, Scandal of Glynn, she had decided to find the only male pup that Scandal had sired. When finally found, he'd been through several trainers and all had given up on him. (Lady Howe said that in human terms "he had a really bad police record.") She was offered the dog for nothing with the proviso that if she did not want him later on, he should be destroyed. . . . mishaps follow . . . Bolo is little used at stud . . . but his progeny take all sorts of honors.

Poor kid. Those wounds look awful. But not great journalism. I don't know my UK news outfits. Isn't The Mail pretty low on the list for responsible journalism . . . Labrador? I wouldn't question Lab X, but the round eyes and large white spot are well off breed standard. Is it even the dog involved in the attack? The account given doesn't sound like anyone would have been taking pictures and the dog in the picture doesn't look stressed. There's something fishy about this story. The mother didn't see what happened, she was standing a few steps away, and the child was thoroughly mauled by the time she turned around. She says the kid was 'lying on the floor' . . . in an outdoor park? Why is the story emerging more than two weeks after it happened? If the woman was so upset, why didn't she go directly to the police. [The story says the police got the report from an ambulance driver]. The dog owner gave her phone number. Why didn't someone get her account of what happened?

I'd agree that 4 Corners is more balanced than PDE. JH has some bad habits, like using one photo to castigate an entire breed; rarely giving credit to breeders who are doing the right thing; and missing some obvious facts: eg, her 'pug' expose misses the absolutely horrid ratings for HD and OCD that the pug gets on OFA stats. Conversely, I'd agree with B_M that attacking Steve Jones as a "rubbish" expert has less credibility than attacking David Attenborough. Jones, in genetics, has a broad support from the science community, both as an expert, and as a communicator. In the case of dog breeding, I'd say the 'few bad apples' have been in the bin for many decades, perhaps a century and the result is a bit whiffy. The 'bad apples' have already, gone a long way to spoiling the bin for some breeds, and it will require careful breeding to return to production of a healthy crop. My mother, born in 1923, was vocal about show-breeding ruining temperament and intelligent when I was a kid (say the 1950's to early 60s). She was mostly on about the evolution of the American Cocker spaniel from little working gundogs that she grew up with, the evolution of the 'Lassie dog' [rough collie] to a narrow headed non-working breed, and the US version of the Irish setter, which, in general has unstable temperament and is unsuited to work as a gun dog. The list of breeds that have been altered in this fashion is long . . . and I'd say all breeds are threatened. Personally, I'd much rather have muck raking journalism than a century of silence. Sometimes it takes some well leveraged, off balance effort to make a dent on a structure that has taken many centuries to build and is governed by people, many of whom are self-righteous and set in their ways. edited for clarity

This belongs in cruely and abuse, not the news. A##-holes like this are out for publicity. Don't give it to them.

Sorry to hear you're dealing with grand mals in a dog so young. I don't think anyone can give you an accurate prognosis for epilepsy. My first Lab had one apparent grand mal seizure when she was 18 months old and never had another incident. No real diagnosis was possible and there was no treatment. I've seen other epilepsy . . . in running a boarding kennel we got the occasional epileptic, and almost always found we were giving Phenobarbitol. One old dear (11 yr old boxer) went into cluster grand mal while in kennels and after talking with vets and upping her dosage, we had to call her owners. They came back early from their vacation and I'm pretty sure took her to the rainbow bridge. We had an epileptic standard poodle in our neighbourhood when I was a kid. I know nothing about if or how it was treated. Currently I have an 8 yr old who had an absolutely bizarre and terrifying series of cluster siezures after taking a pyrethroid-based drop on flea med. These were not like 'regular' grand mal -- no loss of consciousness but awful muscle spasms that knocked her off her feet. She has had subsequent seizures, including, most recently, a cluster seizure that required vet treatment. Thus she is on a low dosage of Phenobarbitol, and I imagine I'll keep her on it for a long time. . . hope it continues to be 100% effective and there's no need to up the dose.

I love pug temperament. I noticed that pugs are worst and second worst (of ~160 breeds), respectively, for incidence of OCD (53% dysplasitic!!!) and HD (64/3% dysplastic ) on the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals database http://www.offa.org/stats_hip.html . A couple people noted that the breed does get HD. No one has mentioned OCD. Just wondering whether pug people are ending out with a lot of arthritis.

I looked into the basset fauve some years back. My research said: 'lovely dog on many counts . . . much healthier than the better know basset . . . but has the hound trait of following its nose, and can be a serious problem as an escape artist. Dunno if that's true. But I think it might be a good idea to check . . . and warn potential puppy buyers that they may end out with a dog that is skilled at going walkabout.

How accurate is highly dependent on: (1) the skill of the person taking and reading the ultrasounds; and (2) the quality of the equipment they're working with. Expensive, modern machines read by a skilled tech can give pretty accurate counts and are getting pretty good at telling the boys from the girls, especially if you wait until the later part of the ultrasound window (eg, 34, not 24 days). The later you go, the harder it is to count, especially if there are lots of pups.

I see you're in NSW . . . but if you happen to be in WA asking this question, there's a company called Advanced Pet Care in Naval Base, about half way between Perth and Rockingham, which does a lot of dry food manufacturing (including products sold under other brand names). Don't know if they use imported grains, but the meat is from WA. They sell a lot of things . . . cheap . . . and I've found them pretty good. But you have to pick up on site.

Lots of things can cause a dog to fit. HIgh temperatures / dehydration. Poisoning. Some sort of metabolic imbalance. Exercise induced collapse. Epilepsy (which is just a catch all for 'unexplained seizure' but hopefully they'll get it down to genetics and environment one of these years). Probably other stuff too. The hard part is dealing with vets. Some are willing to run tests galore ($$$), often coming out with inconclusive results. I'd be happier with a vet who says something like: 'Let me know if it happens again: keep a journal or take videos. Here's a number to call if it gets serious.' If it keeps happening, they usually put the dog on phenobarbitol, which usually works. Fortunately, it's also cheap, though highly controlled.

Lots of things can cause a dog to fit. HIgh temperatures / dehydration. Poisoning. Some sort of metabolic imbalance. Exercise induced collapse. Epilepsy (which is just a catch all for 'unexplained seizure' but hopefully they'll get it down to genetics and environment one of these years). Probably other stuff too. The hard part is dealing with vets. Some are willing to run tests galore ($$$), often coming out with inconclusive results. I'd be happier with a vet who says something like: 'Let me know if it happens again: keep a journal or take videos. Here's a number to call if it gets serious.' If it keeps happening, they usually put the dog on phenobarbitol, which usually works. Fortunately, it's also cheap, though highly controlled.

A stray hope for you. Check to see if there are any notes on the report. Sometimes you get awful scores because the person taking the Xrays aligned the dog wrongly. If the dog is a pet, I guess I'd do what you are already doing, and give the dog the best chance of leading a healthy life using diet and exercise. I'd keep monitoring and get lined up with a vet I trust to help make the right decision, should the theoretical dysplasia shown in the Xrays turn into actual pain for your dog. Many dogs with bad scores do fine until they get old . . . and their old age aches and pains can be eased by anti-inflammatories of one sort or another. If you have any thoughts of breeding the dog, I'd be preparing to back away. A vet is in a better position to advise you than a discussion forum . . . but you need to make sure you're working with a vet that knows his/her stuff and you need to learn what questions to ask.

Ick! What an awful contentious mess. Sounds to me like a lot of people not being sufficiently responsible and then pointing the finger at the other guy. I like the idea of kids walking the dog. If people end out living in more densely populated areas, I wish they would stick to breeds/individuals that behave well on lead and are not DA. If people want to have DA animals or are not willing to put the time in on getting a dog fully socialised, I hope they can find a place where there's a lot of well fenced land around their property and no one else has to deal with their dogs.

If dogs managed to be sustained as human companions through a few (or even several) glaciations, they'll be with us through a major warming event. Human's garbage is often food to a dog. Urbanisation IS a big problem for dog ownership . . . but can be dealt with through change in the mix of dog sizes and a system that caters to and demands responsible dog ownership, especially for dogs living in high-density areas. Northern Europe handles it well. Dogs are more loved than children in many places, and dog owners take their responsibilities seriously.

I can one worse this. Many years ago someone hit my dog. . . a 1 yr old I had JUST adopted from an animal shelter . . . she ran across the road when I opened the car door. I called her and she came, but these drongos came speeding around the corner and hit her. They did stop. They chewed me out and threatened to sue me cause their precious car got a small dent in its fender. Poor Sprocket got a badly broken hip that had to be pinned, and she couldn't walk for many weeks. Won't mention the vet bill. Some people!

Thanks for the links . . .guess the bottom line for Labs is 'not awful, but with plenty of room for improvement'. Should note that 10.8 and 11.9% affected includes Class I, which are often radiometric dysplasia, but not clinical . . . or if clinical, show up as old age arthritis. The numbers look much better if you look only at Class 2 and Class 3. The real numbers are probably worse than the OFA numbers (for all breeds) cause people with bad X-rays often avoid going on to get scored and marginal breeders may avoid scoring altogether. Btw, if you look at the sum of Grade II and Grade III OCD, (I'd say III is at least twice as bad as II, so did a sum of percent affected in II + III *2) you get the following breeds get scores greater than 5. The bolded breeds are over 10. Bolded and underlined, over 15. Pug and chow chow are over 40!!!! PUG CHOW CHOW CHINESE SHAR-PEI ROTTWEILER BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOG NEWFOUNDLAND BLACK RUSSIAN TERRIER AMERICAN BULLDOG DOGUE DE BORDEAUX FILA BRASILEIRO GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG MASTIFF ENGLISH SETTER BULLMASTIFF IRISH WATER SPANIEL ST. BERNARD AMERICAN PIT BULL TERRIER BLOODHOUND CANE CORSO TIBETAN MASTIFF STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIER SHILOH SHEPHERD GORDON SETTER

I'd love to see a working dog competition that involved bringing in fishing nets in the Bay of Fundy :D. With Labs, I think you can have it both ways. The English working Lab's unofficial role, during the formative years of the breed, was gentleman's companion in a repressive society in which many upper class people were deprived of touch (ie, they were therapy dogs, even though saying so would be unthinkable). I would guess that much early selection in the breed was done for dogs who were responsive and easy to live with. There were people who kenneled their dogs and took hunting very seriously . . . but I've also read accounts, which quite surprised me, of muddy dog prints in the bed after hunting expeditions. You can find dogs with 'on' 'off' temperament, who are high drive when working, but relaxed when not doing so. And you find many breeders aiming for 'dual purpose' Labs, with titles in both retrieving and conformation. I think all the many roles of the Lab are wonderful . . .well, maybe not bomb detection cause it so often kills them. If I were still in Australia and were self-confident as a breeder, I'd aim for multi-purpose dogs with calm temperaments . . . and back off the traditional coat, which is too heavy for the Australian climate, challenges vacuum cleaners in the home, and is more appropriate to the role Labs no longer fill . . . bringing in fishing nets. (I'm in a cool temperature part of the US and coat does not interfere with working here). It may be heresy, but I think conformation should be allowed to change when the dog's function changes. By the way, when people say 'form follows function' . .. I wonder what guidance that gives those with lap dogs ;).

Ah yes, but there's the rule and then there's the question of whether or not anyone is motivated to enforce it. I spent two years going to classes and doing lab work at Univ. of Calif Santa Barbara and brought a Lab with me every day. Sometimes she hung out when I went into buildings. I was younger then, wouldn't do it now. Dogs weren't allowed on campus, but there were lots of dog lovers around and there were many more important rules to enforce. As one of the examiners on my PhD committee told me (about a different matter): "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission."