Victoria New Laws

[PuddleDuck]

Back when I worked in the industry I was chatting to the person in charge of a fairly well known Vic rescue group. She told me that they had just rescued a large number of dogs from a puppy farm and they were teaching them how to eat kibble. Apparently the a-hole that ran the business used to have about 60 of them in an uninsulated metal shed, all loose, and about once a month he'd pick up a dead cow from a nearby farm and dump the whole thing in the shed for the dogs to fight over. It was summer, so it rotted quickly, but that was the only food they got. I wonder if stories like that are behind the 'clean bowls, no offal' part of this?

[Missymoo]

just become a BYB breeder and live underneath the radar.

fark moi!

pretty much. Just join a 'pet registry' seems we pay all this money to VD for what...??

I am pretty much done in the dog world, as well as many other small breeders..whats the point of sticking around, really?

[Steve]

Here is the problem I have. If you are not a Vicdogs member and you have three dogs you can do anything you want with them but the minute you have 4 you have to have them prodded and poked,have diet plans and retirement plans.Get told how to feed them and when etc .Now if this were about the dogs and they really think thats what is best for dogs how come they dont make every one who has even one dog tow this line? If you are a Vicdogs member you get to do what you want up to number ten then that extra dog changes everything for you and every other dog you own. This has got nothing what ever to do with what is best for the dogs and it sure as hell wont make life any better or any less stressful for breeding dogs.

Puppy farmers don't care about any of this because all they want is production for a period of time . They don't care how a diet may impact on the dog's longevity or how over vaccination and over medication may compromise its immune system. They have no interest in keeping older dogs because they don't have to care about how their health may deteriorate to lead to diseases that show up later in life which a dog may pass onto their puppies . Some breeds need to be assessed and if they are still well and helathy used at stud way past 6 years of age. In some breeds it can mean the difference between a devloping heart murmur or a multitude of others. Its just piss ants telling us how to suck eggs. No experience in breeding dogs or even owning more than one or two at a time but bloody experts on how it should be done - so they can get a conviction and shut us down if we get caught throwing a bone around.

[Are You Serious Jo]

You better believe you'll be prosecuted if you throw that bone on the ground, they wouldn't put anything in they aren't interested in enforcing.

[weisnjac]

I am pretty much done in the dog world, as well as many other small breeders..whats the point of sticking around, really?

I'm with you, Missymoo

[Bluegrace]

There are many, many areas to be concerned with, wrt to this leglislation. Every dog person in Victoria needs to go through this in detail and highlight specific areas of concern.

Not sure if this has been raised yet here, but under the current wording of this documentation, if a dog you bred dies under 3 years of age, you have to give the owner their money back. Because the wording is so poor, this could include if it gets hit by a car, bitten by a snake, dies from an untreated medical condition (ie: kennel cough turning into pneumonia), dies whilst giving birth, etc, etc, etc, you would have to give that owner their money back. Oh, and no option to replace the dog either.

Also if someone buys a dog from you and then decides after 3 weeks that they don't want it for whatever reason - you need to give them their money back.

These are in contravention to current consumer laws.

The document was clearly written by people who had no idea about the VCA requirements, boarding kennel requirements, nor the greyhound code.

There are lots of small issues with the document such as:

* if you move your dog from one area to another, you must then move its identification card that has all its details on it. If you move your dogs as often as I do, I could almost employ someone to stay on top of the issue of moving cards.

* the health checks required by vets? holy smokes!

* there is no vaccination available for heartworm or worms. yet this is detailed as being available. btw, there is so little heartworm in Victoria, why is this being pushed (clearly the people who wrote the document had no idea about the transmission requirements for heartworm. (there is definitely a big push on trying to put as many poisons into our dogs as possible)

* stud dogs can not be used for more than 6 years? what the ? so if you have a dog that you use at stud at aged 2, and then only decide to use him again when he's 10, well then you can't. sorry. no exceptions.

* if you have a fabulous dog that just happens to be a carrier for an inheritable defect, then you can't breed from it. Full stop. No exceptions. Can't breed a carrier to a non affected. Nope, remove that completely from the breeding program. of course, whoever wrote the document seems to have so little dog experience that they don't seem to understand that if you artificially decrease the gene pool, you then concentrate the problems of the other remaining dogs. This is what happened in my breed in the 1980's, and in other breeds.

There is no doubt that the writers of the documentation mean well, but honestly, there are some major flaws in this that must be rectified immediately.

Oh, and if you want to breed your maltese shitzhu poodle jackrussell cross, just once to that gorgeous king charles spaniel bichon cross, you can, with absolutely no legal requirements.

off to feed my dogs some offal now.

- Jane

[Andisa]

There are many, many areas to be concerned with, wrt to this leglislation. Every dog person in Victoria needs to go through this in detail and highlight specific areas of concern.

Not sure if this has been raised yet here, but under the current wording of this documentation, if a dog you bred dies under 3 years of age, you have to give the owner their money back. Because the wording is so poor, this could include if it gets hit by a car, bitten by a snake, dies from an untreated medical condition (ie: kennel cough turning into pneumonia), dies whilst giving birth, etc, etc, etc, you would have to give that owner their money back. Oh, and no option to replace the dog either.

Also if someone buys a dog from you and then decides after 3 weeks that they don't want it for whatever reason - you need to give them their money back.

These are in contravention to current consumer laws.

The document was clearly written by people who had no idea about the VCA requirements, boarding kennel requirements, nor the greyhound code.

There are lots of small issues with the document such as:

* if you move your dog from one area to another, you must then move its identification card that has all its details on it. If you move your dogs as often as I do, I could almost employ someone to stay on top of the issue of moving cards.

* the health checks required by vets? holy smokes!

* there is no vaccination available for heartworm or worms. yet this is detailed as being available. btw, there is so little heartworm in Victoria, why is this being pushed (clearly the people who wrote the document had no idea about the transmission requirements for heartworm. (there is definitely a big push on trying to put as many poisons into our dogs as possible)

* stud dogs can not be used for more than 6 years? what the ? so if you have a dog that you use at stud at aged 2, and then only decide to use him again when he's 10, well then you can't. sorry. no exceptions.

* if you have a fabulous dog that just happens to be a carrier for an inheritable defect, then you can't breed from it. Full stop. No exceptions. Can't breed a carrier to a non affected. Nope, remove that completely from the breeding program. of course, whoever wrote the document seems to have so little dog experience that they don't seem to understand that if you artificially decrease the gene pool, you then concentrate the problems of the other remaining dogs. This is what happened in my breed in the 1980's, and in other breeds.

There is no doubt that the writers of the documentation mean well, but honestly, there are some major flaws in this that must be rectified immediately.

Oh, and if you want to breed your maltese shitzhu poodle jackrussell cross, just once to that gorgeous king charles spaniel bichon cross, you can, with absolutely no legal requirements.

off to feed my dogs some offal now.

- Jane

^ and this is what we have to look forward to, just gets more frustrating as it airs out...so many good people will simply walk away because it will be bloody hard fighting for reason when the PF and BYB still won't be affected. Sad world.

I just fed mine bones and offal too :D

Edited May 10, 2013 by Andisa

[SkySoaringMagpie]

I expect Juliette de Bairacli Levy and others are rotating in their graves at speed.

I am sure a lot of this has arisen from stories like the cow story. Dogs being chucked half a maggoty bit of roadkill twice a week, etc. And because it's hard to define adequate in legislation, they will go to lowest common denominator and make everyone comply. It's like the NSW stuff with the concrete kennels. It's not good for developing pups but because it allows a specific standard against which you can easily measure compliance they can ping people without drama if they step out of line.

Some of this has to come down to whether it's good regulation. Most state governments and the Federal Government have deregulation agendas and guidance material on best practice regulation. Usually black letter law regulation is supposed to be a last resort, and the costs of compliance for both Government, business and the community are supposed to balance properly against the outcomes. A lot of the NSW recommendations don't comply with it and it looks on first scan like this stuff doesn't either.

There's other stuff I don't propose to put here, because I'm sure we all get read by the AR folks. However, I think we need to think strategically about alliances with their next targets. I also think that we might find that issues like Moorook will start to split the AR movement too, there's only so much room on the high moral ground and eventually they start kicking each other off it.

[BlackJaq]

I agree with above posts but this

* there is no vaccination available for heartworm

is confusing me a little because we recently had all our dogs vaccinated for heartworm... Do you mean there is no vaccination available in Vic or we just shelled out about $150 per pop for a non-existent vaccination?

[Rebanne]

* there is no vaccination available for heartworm or worms. yet this is detailed as being available. btw, there is so little heartworm in Victoria, why is this being pushed (clearly the people who wrote the document had no idea about the transmission requirements for heartworm. (there is definitely a big push on trying to put as many poisons into our dogs as possible)

- Jane

there is a heartworm vaccination, but a lot of people won't use it for various reasons.

[Rebanne]

also Steve mentioned several times stud dogs must have a 2 day rest after mating. It is actually 2 days rest in a 60 day period.

[Steve]

also Steve mentioned several times stud dogs must have a 2 day rest after mating. It is actually 2 days rest in a 60 day period.

Yep correct picked it up myself about an hour ago. But he's not allowed to mate two dogs at a time

Edited May 10, 2013 by Steve

[Bluegrace]

- Jane

there is a heartworm vaccination, but a lot of people won't use it for various reasons.

No, there is no vaccination. It's just ivermectin, which is a poison, and you are giving mini doses to hopefully kill any larvae that might be there. There is no vaccination. But in many parts of Australia, and the world there is no heartworm. Google - heartworm billion dollar industry scam

[Rebanne]

No, there is no vaccination. It's just ivermectin, which is a poison, and you are giving mini doses to hopefully kill any larvae that might be there. There is no vaccination. But in many parts of Australia, and the world there is no heartworm. Google - heartworm billion dollar industry scam

There is a 12 month vaccination for heartworm. Ask your vet. Heartworm is in my neighbourhood, the dog next door had it.

[Rebanne]

There is not a large amount of online submissions shown, hopefully there are a few more hard copies going in. The working dog people have been very active from what I read.

[Bluegrace]

There is a 12 month vaccination for heartworm. Ask your vet. Heartworm is in my neighbourhood, the dog next door had it.

with all due respect, this is not a vaccination. if so, you are the only place in the world to have it. I think if you check, you'll find that it is simply a poison to treat the heartworm larvae. and there is no vaccination for worms, despite how some vets may choose to label them.

Here's a link to an American article, which can be relatively extrapolated to our situation here in Australia.

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/billion-dollar-heartworm-scam.html

[Florise]

There is a 12 month vaccination for heartworm. Ask your vet. Heartworm is in my neighbourhood, the dog next door had it.

with all due respect, this is not a vaccination. if so, you are the only place in the world to have it. I think if you check, you'll find that it is simply a poison to treat the heartworm larvae. and there is no vaccination for worms, despite how some vets may choose to label them.

Here's a link to an American article, which can be relatively extrapolated to our situation here in Australia.

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/billion-dollar-heartworm-scam.html

[/quote

Yes that is what I thought. It is sustained release dose of the prevention drug moxidectin, not a vaccination.

[RiverStar-Aura]

Would appear that if you get caught throwing your dog a bone you will be in the poo if you live in Victoria

Big emphasis on feeding every dog every time from its own bowl here.

5 (1) Nutrition

Food must be provided in sufficient quantity and nutritional quality; where the food is canine appropriate and scientifically balanced, to meet the daily requirements for the condition and size of the animal.

Minimum quantity and nutritional quality of feed must be detailed within the health plan developed in conjunction with, and signed off by, a veterinarian for each classification of dog in the Business.

Main meal of the day must be provided in food receptacle that has been cleaned of all uneaten food.

All adult and adolescent dogs must be fed a minimum of once daily from a food receptacle.

Pregnant and lactating bitches must be fed at least twice daily, or under instruction from a veterinarian, from a food receptacle.

Puppies 3 weeks of age to weaning must be provided with an appropriate food in a shallow food receptacle according to the business' health plan.

Fully weaned puppies less than 16 weeks of age must be fed a minimum of three times daily from a food receptacle; and must not be left without food for a period of more than 12 hours.

Puppies between 4 and 6 months of age must be fed a minimum of twice daily from a food receptacle; and must not be left without food for a period of more than 12 hours.

Orphaned and pre-weaned puppies must be fed under the direction of a veterinarian.

When multiply housed, each animal must be provided with their own food receptacle; the operations manager must ensure all animals are socially compatible to feed together and are able to eat a sufficient quantity of food without duress.

Dogs must not be fed offal to reduce the risk of the introduction of hydatids.

Food must be stored appropriately in sealed containers, which must be vermin proof, and refrigerated where manufacturers recommendations suggest it is required.

At any time the Business must hold a minimum of five days food supply, sufficient to feed all classifications of animals kept at the Business.

The preparation of food must be conducted in hygienic areas which must be cleaned and disinfected after food is prepared.

Food receptacles must be non-spillable and made of a material that can be cleaned and disinfected.

Containers must not cause injury to the animals.

I am not agreeing in any sense at all with this new proposed 'law', however, the sentence I've bolded above is not how I interpret the article. It clearly states that the main meal is to be fed in a receptacle (not just a bowl). My interpretation is that bones can still be fed, not in receptacles, unless the said bone(s) are the main dietary staple.

I just can't believe that in a world with so many problems, people are wasting their time with trying to dictate how individuals must feed their own pets. Why not focus on something that is really important rather than something silly like this, which I have no idea how they'd plan on policing. Are they going to have rangers visit every property with a dog at meal times to ensure this practice is being implemented?

glad I'm not a breeder because my dogs don't even own bowls. They eat food out of their puzzle toys or when training. They LOVE it. I would hate for them to lose out on the highlight of the day....

Not once does the article mention bowls. The word used is 'receptacle', which means an object or space for containing something. That can be taken to mean a bowl or treat toy/puzzle toy.

[4Kelpies]

There is not a large amount of online submissions shown, hopefully there are a few more hard copies going in. The working dog people have been very active from what I read.

I've been working hard to get my online submission completed but keep getting the following message

"A Database Error Occurred

Error Number: 1366

Incorrect string value: '\x80\x9Cfact...' for column 'answer' at row 1"

Is anyone else getting this?

Edited May 10, 2013 by 4Kelpies

[MonElite]

Food must be provided in sufficient quantity and nutritional quality; where the food is canine appropriate and scientifically balanced, to meet the daily requirements for the condition and size of the animal.

Minimum quantity and nutritional quality of feed must be detailed within the health plan developed in conjunction with, and signed off by, a veterinarian for each classification of dog in the Business.

This could be read as that you are not allowed to feed natural diet.

And if your vet is not pro raw you are screwed.

So if they tell you to feed 3 cups of dried food and your dog puts on weight you cant really limit the food, right? And it will only be changed when you get your 6monthly inspection from the vet?

I might be wrong, there was so much of it that Ive now forgotten some of the completly rediculous things in there.

And yeah - I must have my carpets shampooed every 6 months if my dogs come inside.