Now Koalas Are Being Attacked By Dogs

[_PL_]

thank you Costanza. Laughed so hard I nearly fell off my soapbox. :laugh:

[sandgrubber]

lucky for us we don't have the same problems as parts of USA where the native wildlife invades suburbia and kills dogs,the advice there is lock up your dogs at night,

Really now? Has someone banished poisonous snakes from Australia recently?

The main reason to bring your dogs in at night, where I live, is because you like having them near you . . . or you don't want them to bark too much and annoy the neighbors.

[Kirislin]

my dogs sleep inside at night but frequently go out the dog door for toilet. With 5 dogs I usually hear the door go at least 5 times a night. I'm glad I dont have to get up everytime to escort them out there in case of koalas.

[coogie]

I think it probably depends a bit on where you live in Australia. My dogs sleep inside with no free access to the yard at night, much as I would hate them to kill any roaming koalas or more realistically possums at our place, it is for their protection as well. We have cane toads to contend with and also a very high concentration of fruit bats that are frequently in the yard, so keeping them in works both ways for us.I would panic if they got a bat, I am worried enough about the bloody bat poo. They go out late for a supervised toilet visit and then no access until morning, it doesn't seem to bother them and they let us know if they ever need to go out "off schedule". If I have heard a lot of bat fighting overnight I check under the trees before they go out in the morning to make sure there are no bat corpses.

Neighbour's dog is free range and has already had two toad incidents, I suggested he lock the dog door but he said he doesn't hear the dog scratching if it needs to go out and doesn't want to have to clean up. Yet he was frantic when the dog got a toad, people can be strange.

[Crisovar]

Our dogs are locked in at night too, for the safety of both them and the wildlife (which is abundant) with the added bonus of no barking to annoy anyone.

[mac'ella]

lucky for us we don't have the same problems as parts of USA where the native wildlife invades suburbia and kills dogs,the advice there is lock up your dogs at night,

Really now? Has someone banished poisonous snakes from Australia recently?

The main reason to bring your dogs in at night, where I live, is because you like having them near you . . . or you don't want them to bark too much and annoy the neighbors.

most snake bites except for a few python attacks occur accidently or when the snake is defending itself from attacking dogs

[Kajirin]

Get quite a few koalas, kangaroos and echidnas hanging around the house here at night [right on the back lawn where the dog hangs out]. Dog does get excited over them, but knows when I say leave it he does - have to take him inside until what ever has decided to hang around moves on. But having said that all the animals are inside at night, always been that way, just loo breaks at night which are supervised.

Didn't like the angle the article went in though, demonising dogs yet again

[corvus]

my dogs sleep inside at night but frequently go out the dog door for toilet. With 5 dogs I usually hear the door go at least 5 times a night. I'm glad I dont have to get up everytime to escort them out there in case of koalas.

There are five dogs at my parents' house when mine go to stay. No dog doors. All dogs go on cue after they have eaten. When I'm there I supervise to make sure no one gets distracted and forgets to go. It generally takes less than a minute. It's actually easier with more dogs because half of them overmark the other half. ;)