Fresh Start So Everyone Can Have A Go

[Trisven13]

I'm coming! Can't wait. I had such a great time last year and I'm really looking forward to it this year. Hoping that some of my Sydney friends come along who couldn't make it to the Canberra awards.

[Greytmate]

How long you've been visiting.

I have been visiting since 2004. :D

[fifi]

I'm another who at the moment cant get to the awards (but If I waved a free ticket under OH's - he may roll his eye's & forgive me yet another trip away from home this year !!!!!!)

My profile says 2004, but I think I was about a couple of years before then.

I saw an ad in the old Ozdog paper for Dogzonline, read & lurked for a long time & then joined.

Don't always have time to post, but read a fair bit.

Quite a few people here I count as good friends, both IRL and online.

Its my homepage and my cyber home.

Learned lots and laughed, cried, and shared shoulders with DOL'ers during times of world or personal crisis, dog dramas & joys.

Seen the births, deaths, marriages of DOL'ers, beautfiul litters of pups and losses of our hearthounds.

Always amazed at the skills bank we have on this forum, wanted to strangle trolls, sometimes knock heads of DOL'ers having a spat, and amazed at acts of generousity & kindness.

fifi

[~Anne~]

How long you've been visiting.

I have been visiting since 2004. :D

Hey Greytmate, are you able to make it down this year??

[jemappelle]

I'v been a member since 2004 and lurked for a couple of months before hand I think. :D

[PooMother]

Think we all may have been lurkers for a little bit Jemapple lol

[fifi]

This reminds me of the old game of Red-red-rover ! last one still going after everyone was caught by the whistle was the winner !!!

fifi

[fifi]

oops, internet keeps cutting in & out !

Edited March 6, 2010 by fifi

[Danois]

I joined just after I got Angus as I needed help with toilet training and have stuck around since - mainly because there is a very strong community within the dane thread.

Because of that thread many of us have gotten to know each other off the forum and there is now a strong support network there for all of us.

It was through these forums that I found a fantastic vet & vet nurse who diagnosed Angs when the other vets failed to and then provided the most amazing care.

I have never forgotten the support I got when Angs went missing and the DOLers who came and searched with me and even more so, I was pretty humbled by a lot of the comments that were posted when Angs died.

And thanks to DOL I know this amazing woman from North Sydney who's friendship and support in general I hold very dear to me.

[Katdogs]

I'm coming to the BIG NIGHT, bringing OH but prepared to dump him for Troy if I get to meet the great man!!

Been hanging around DOL since early 2006 in different disguises, mainly lurking these days.

Without DOL I wouldn't have my Jodie, and Stevie is a happier, healthier dog because of the great advice here. I've also done a bit of fostering and met wonderful people because of DOL. Paige's Star, Leo's Story and the Victorian bushfires are the non-dog bits that have changed my life, amongst many others.

[dogslife]

I lurk on DOL and only post when I feel the need........or its late at night and I can't sleep.

I am entering this so I can see Troy in a bikini....... and given I am not sure where I will be ( I travel alot) if I win I will be forced to stay and attend

[Chiwogabull*]

Well I'm a newbie, and I definently don't know anything!!

I came in seach of others who understand my love of our fur children, and to learn something about showing my brand new puppy and ended up meeting some fantastic mentors and...........

I know I will never be alone searching for answers to anything every again

[Lady Flying Furball]

Well I'm a newbie, and I definently don't know anything!!

I came in seach of others who understand my love of our fur children, and to learn something about showing my brand new puppy and ended up meeting some fantastic mentors and...........

I know I will never be alone searching for answers to anything every again

you will definitely never be alone

[newfsie]

And I just love dogs............Especially of the newf variety

[Dodo]

I do not go to events I need to wear fancy clothes .

However would love to win this for someone I know via Dol who really wants to go and deserves to have a special evening .

[fifi]

Dodo, you are one of the kindest people here, always doing things quietly in the background for others and the dogs :-)) People like you make DOL a special place :-)

Alfie is the luckiest dog in Oz !!!

fifi

[dogslife]

I'm coming! Can't wait. I had such a great time last year and I'm really looking forward to it this year. Hoping that some of my Sydney friends come along who couldn't make it to the Canberra awards.

Do you have friends........??????

But I thought you were on DOL like the rest of us cause you didn't have a life..... ;) :rofl:

[Danois]

I'm coming! Can't wait. I had such a great time last year and I'm really looking forward to it this year. Hoping that some of my Sydney friends come along who couldn't make it to the Canberra awards.

Do you have friends........??????

But I thought you were on DOL like the rest of us cause you didn't have a life..... ;) :rofl:

Are you in town?

[Steve]

I joined under the user name of Steve 9 years ago but I was here for a while before that and I actually posted one post under my own name when there was a thread started by Jim going on about the possibility of starting up a new group as a separate to the Canine Councils. As is typical of many threads which happen here the idea ran on for a while and died out but I just couldn’t get the whole idea out of my mind and I started to work behind the scenes to see if it could ever become reality.

Jim and I started to chat via PMs and email and he used to say -"You just can’t let it go can you?" I couldn’t and I became more and more sure that it was something that was needed in the purebred dog world. Don Burke was popular and was telling the world about how rotten we were and no one was defending us but I also knew that some of us were rotten and there was no way of telling the good registered breeders from he bad

Sandy - Ceilidh - was my sounding board in the flesh and I must have driven her mad too and I made her listen to me for hours of phone chats and cups of coffee at her grooming salon - She encouraged me and never made me feel like an idiot for not being able to let it go.

I’m not sure she ever knew what a huge part she played in the set up of the MDBA but she was there from day one helping me to think out loud.

All the while I was becoming more involved with people who I was watching on dogz. I started to watch posts very carefully and by then I was a moderator so I had some idea of some stuff that was going on behind the scenes. Dogz was the sounding board and the teaching ground for dog related issues and I began looking for people who I thought had the qualities we would need to put a successful group together. I consciously watched for clues in posting styles and hints about who people really were. I watched some other groups come and go and pulled apart what had gone wrong and how we could avoid it happening to us.

I had met Dr Lesley Levins who had a PhD in Science Ed when she purchased one of my puppies from me some years earlier and we had become great mates. She was full of knowledge and wisdom of the purebred dog world and I began to think how awesome it would be to be able to put together courses set by purebred dog people. Her credentials left me for dead and she never made me feel she thought that or that I was a flea she wanted to brush off - She also encouraged me and spent hours chatting and educating me.

Lesley was a dogz member too!

And so the rest is now history - Jed, Nadia, Goldchow, Jim, Lesley Levins, Troy and myself became the board of the Master Dog Breeders Association - for about 2 weeks. It became obvious about then that if we stayed as an association we were going to be bombed and affected by the same influences other groups such as the Dog Body which had already gone down in disaster had been. We had already started setting up the correspondence courses and as an association we were under other pressures to comply with fair trade issues and being told what to do etc which we weren’t happy with. So we folded the Association and Troy bowed out due to his many other commitments and we launched as a partnership and then found that too difficult to administer with us all living so far away from each other - every time we needed to do anything we had to wait for a piece of paper to be posted around from one to the other - so we became the MDBA Pty Ltd trading as Master Dog Breeders and Associates and the Master Dog Breeders Academy. This gave us the freedom to operate without restriction on whom we could let in and how we could word our codes of conduct etc. I was lectured on how stupid I was to go into business with people I had never met personally and I have never regretted that and I feel so very humble to have been involved with people I "met" via Dogzonline.

We worked like slaves and everyone put in so much of their lives setting it all up and making it go. We introduced new levels of membership so we moved from just breeders to breeders, rescue, pet owners and professionals. We kept at it even though a couple suffered major health and personal disasters. There has been a stroke, marriage break ups, heart attacks, breakdowns, close family deaths and financial hardship. None of us have ever taken a cent out of it but rather we sank our own money in to make it go.

We have now made our mark on the outside world but dogz will always be the place that supported us and bought us together.

I could never say how grateful I am to Troy and the fact that he stuck with the forum even though it’s caused him grief and loads of money.

Jed, Nadia and Jim have had to move on, they are no longer on the board and have now returned to life without the MDBA board and I’m honoured to still call them mates who I would never have known if I hadn’t have come to chat here now and then about 10 years ago.

Lesley Levins has lost her vision since we began and now only has around 2% of her "eyes" She recently had new heart valves put in and suffered a stroke and some major personal crap which she has now almost fully recovered from so she has had some time off but she is still here and a very much valued active member of the board - almost ready to go back to full time work with us.

Our graphics work is done for us by someone we met on dogz - thank you shmoo

Our event management and sponsorship deals are done by someone we met on dogz - thank you Anne

Our webwork is done by someone we met on dogz - Thank you Exelerashun.

Our media work is done by someone we met on dogz - Thank You Wendy H.

Then we get to Goldchow - What a lady! Lesley Stewart works around the clock every single day on the MDBA and MDBA Pacers which is a charity born from what we saw as a need for animal owners. This was due to requests the MDBA were getting for help and our dissatisfaction for traditional animal welfare orgs.

The awards take up a huge part of our lives too and Goldchow is as solid as a rock and with just her and I covering all bases I don’t think anyone could know the work load she has and words could never describe how much I appreciate her and I thank God [and Troy} I was able to get to know her and become her business partner and friend.

When I think back on what we have achieved and the difference we have made to so many dogs, and when I think of how big MDBA pacers is going to be and the role it will play in preventing domestic animals suffering and be instrumental in change long after we have moved on I don’t think anyone could deny what an awesome place dogzonline is and the part its played in all we have done.

I’m more passionate now than I have ever been that what we are doing is truly what is best for dogs and their owners and with PACERS what's best for all animal owners. I’m very much aware of the fact that without dogz it would never have happened.

Anyone who gets to sit with Troy [who is a very humble and unaffected person] should see it as a true honour.

I was trying to count how many of you I have gotten to meet personally now not to mention the numbers I’ve had the honour of chatting with on the phone too. For the record I’m having the time of my life - so thank you to every one of you who have participated and become part of this community.

[Rozzie]

Lets talk about what brings you to dogz and what you get out of it. How long you've been visiting.The kind of threads that get you back here more often

What you hope to get out of visiting here and what you have taken from it.You can say nice things about some of the posters etc but keep the theme to dogz life.

I've been here since 2002.

I vaguely remember joining as my Shepherd had lymphoma and I was trying to find out more about it.

There are lots of supportive people here and there always has been. I miss some of the ex-posters with whom you could have a real ding dong argument and still be friends in the morning.

I used to visit rescue most but now, mostly general and off topic and occassionally the photo thread.