SkySoaringMagpie

I've had two of these, go round the ring like a bag lady, gait beautifully back to the gazebo :p

Now that would cheese you off!

Crappy food vendors! I know, I know - we should just bring our own

I think some of the pressures are not to do with the pure breed issue at all, but to do with the "thereoughtabealaw" mentality which is fueled by talk radio and politicians who spend more time on media alerts than policy development. Laws are often spoken of in popular culture as if their existence means compliance and appropriate sentencing when you have non-compliance. We know that isn't ever going to happen and so does your average punter when a rapist walks off with a suspended sentence. It's the doublethink that is hard to cut through. It's a cliche rooted in truth that those who are responsible are law abiding, and they will stop their breeding if the law constricts enough, whereas those who are not responsible don't bother. Without an effective compliance regime, which there rarely is given restrictions on funding for regulators, you get the irresponsible running free. Perhaps something we could do every time a new law is proposed is ask the Minister responsible how much funding is being given to compliance activity for existing laws. How many existing pet owners have been audited/sentenced/warned under current laws. Get in your opposition Senators ear around the time of your state budget estimates hearings. Ask annoying questions about the budget spending on compliance. Ask how compliance activity for any new law will be funded. Talk about funding gaps in other areas.

Nifty, :D

I see BIS today was an American Cocker - anyone have hound group results?

Damn, those are good ones. Might be too late to add them in now...

Are you planning to formally circulate through the canine control memberships? I think you'd get a lot of signatures that way but not sure how to avoid double up if people take petitions to shows etc.

Inexperienced people often either over-do or under-do punishment. Over doing it and under doing it are both dangerous. We run a 5 dog household. One is a resource guarder. We feed all the dogs separately with a combination of crates and baby gates. If food/bones are not consumed after 15 minutes they are taken up and thrown away, including from the resource guarder. I think the resource guarder (who is more bonded to me) has tried growling at OH once. He has never tried growling at me. OH did not punish, OH just calmly took the bone away. Punishing this dog would not have worked, what worked was calm leadership.

"Other - please describe in comments"

I didn't read it as a complaint, sorry if my reply came over that way. I know the type of thing you mean, and I think there is a difference between a newbie proud of their first ribbon and an old hand who regularly spams everyone.

I got told early on never to qualify results by saying "only one there" but my own personal guideline is don't post it unless you beat someone to get it. I posted something recently where my boy was the only one entered in a particular property class, but I made that clear and whinged about the lack of competition I agree with you that you have to just move on to the next post. Apart from anything else, if it looks small minded to point it out - some people go with "how many were entered?" to say the same thing, but that also looks a bit small minded.

I'm not complaining or praising either way - just agreeing with becks that you can't rely on it at face value. I think it's a great tool and I find it more useful than irritating. This is interesting, I'm still working out what I think about it. I think it's widely considered that emailing a judge with photos before an appointment is not on. I know people do it anyway, but I think there is general consensus that that is trying to influence the judge. Some judges I know also take themselves off breed email lists in the months prior to an appointment, some don't. I agree with Ellz that FB makes advertising more available to people without money, and I think that equalising effect is great if you agree advertising has a role in the sport. However, while most people accept print advertising and don't accept the "direct marketing" of an email, I think the FB stuff sits somewhere in between the two. A friends list is not public like a magazine, but neither is it particularly private like an email - particularly not if like me you add anyone with a Saluki in their photo and anyone you recognise from the Oz dog show scene.

Seen a few things on Facebook recently that confirmed my view that it should be treated as a completely unregulated environment when it comes to dog show stuff. By that I mean that OzShow and DOL are moderated, and the Pointscores are subject to various kinds of verification of results but on Facebook you can say anything you like, and delete any comment that doesn't support you. I don't have anything against unregulated environments as long as I'm not the one paying their lawyers and media team - but they need to be handled with a more skeptical eye.

Has anyone used any of the online "made to measure" suit companies - if so, which ones would you recommend? Or avoid?

Mine was in the PO Box this morning.

A friend in WA has three overseas orders that are at risk because she's been told by her AQIS vet that there is no rabies vaccine to be had for love or money in Australia, and that it will be January at the earliest, probably March until some is available. I'm not an AQIS vet but I work in another area of international trade and find it weird that a regional shortage caused by the Indonesian rabies crisis would affect say, supplies from the USA?? Or does the vaccine have to be AQIS registered on the way in to Australia or something? Could she not just get her AQIS vet to fax a script to the USA and get it shipped direct to Australia? Google is not helping, most of the rabies vaccine articles seem to be pretty dated.

Talk to the breeder about the kind of life you lead and your dog will lead and let them pick a pup for you. Ultimately any puppy you take home should be playful, curious and appropriately cautious in new situations without being shy or fearful. They all have different personalities but it's much more complex than dominant or shy. It may be that the most important quality in a puppy for you is that the puppy is laid back, rather than a social butterfly with their nose in everything, for example. The breeder has worked out their little personalities by that stage, and probably yours as well! The one thing you have to get right when it comes to choosing I think, is the breeder you choose.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/be...ymbol-rebellion Dogs: Iran's new symbol of rebellion The religiously informed state disapproval of dogs has seen the pampered pooch become the latest sign of middle-class dissent o Masoud Golsorkhi o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 November 2010 12.08 GMT o Article history Recently a visitor from Iran assured me that her dog was staying at a five-star spa in Tehran for the duration of her trip. I had no idea she had a dog in the first place, but was struck that she had insisted in telling me such a thing. Over the past few years, dog ownership has become yet another unlikely arena for the social and political dispute within the tumultuous politics of Iran. It is well known that dogs, along with pigs, are considered unclean in Islam. Strictly speaking, the theology doesn't ban their ownership, or petting; the Sunna prescribes that dogs are "pollutants", contact with them rendering believers ritually unclean. This means that ritual cleansing is required before one is able to perform prayers. Despite this, dogs have been kept by Muslims for centuries. For example, salukis, an ancient breed of hunting dog, have historically been valued by the Bedouin, who breed them for both their beauty and their prowess in hunting. However, having domesticated animals free to roam inside a house, contact with which would require ritual cleansing, would be quite tricky from a practical point of view for Muslims who are required to pray five times a day – even though there is no actual legal prohibition of dog ownership. The Islamic Republic of Iran makes not only the application of the laws of Islam its constitutional duty, but also the promotion of godly behaviour its social remit. It has an Orwellian state ministry tasked with the promotion of "better behaviour" according to Islamic mores. This is the sharpest point at which the ideological state comes into contact with a people, who are at least as fun loving as they are God fearing. Even though a Saudi-style morality police has no place in a much more modernised, sophisticated and complex country such as Iran, nevertheless, official and semi-official state agents conduct waves of enforcement against manifestations of un-Islamic social conduct. Laxed hijabs of young women are a primary target – such clampdowns are conducted in well-anticipated cycles, once or twice a year. Being a pragmatic state with already strained resources, the Iranian government announces such clampdowns well in advance in order to reduce the number of confrontations. Street patrols stop, admonish and occasionally fine or arrest the offenders. The very fact of the announcement makes it clear the ritualistic nature of such campaigns. The state prohibition of anything in Iran is an open invitation for its widespread social promotion. Blond hair and garish makeup, nose jobs (of which Iran is the world capital) and extravagantly sculpted and gelled hairstyles for boys are all forms of sedition – political statements with a small "p". The state's legitimacy is thus questioned and openly ridiculed, at least by a certain section of the population. As it happens, opponents of the state and its ideology also have the means and the spare time to indulge in such practices because they are, by and large, members of the affluent urban elite. But the religiously informed state disapproval of dogs in Iran has a deeper resonance than a garish pair of Dolce & Gabbana crystal-studded sunglasses. Before the Muslim invasion and conversion, Iran's state religion was Zoroastrianism. In ancient Iran, dogs were particularly treasured and well-treated animals. The Gathas were explicit in the promotion of dogs as good and godly creatures; furthermore, the Zoroastrians believed that the bridge to the afterlife was guarded by dogs, so being nice to dogs in this world might have its reward in the hereafter. After the Islamic conquest and the gradual but eventual mass conversion of Iranians from their national religion, disdain for dogs was not only a way for the conquerors of humiliating nation but a way for the new converts to prove their devotion to their new religion. Cruelty to and avoidance of dogs was the equivalent of the dried ham for the reconquistadors in Spain, where the newly converted Jews and Moslems were forced to keep pigs and to eat them to confirm the earnestness of their conversion. The past 1,400 years or so haven't been that much fun for dogs in Iran. All that has come to change paradoxically through the very same religion responsible for their plight. Their recent popularity and adulation must have taken Iranian dogs by surprise. Dogs are now as much symbols of safe, middle-class resistance as false eyelashes and green wristbands. Pooches have never had it so good, and rare breeds, especially small lap dogs, change hand for tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. An underground industry of dog beauty parlours thrives, mostly run out of private homes, as do a plethora of canine protection and welfare charities. A legal and substantial kennel industry has developed into what is fancily called "dog spas" where the middle class deposit their dogs when on holiday or, in the case of some of my conflicted relatives, when a devout auntie comes to stay. The industry booms further every time a firebrand preacher calls for their banning or admonishes dog owners from such platforms like the much loathed national radio and TV. Its been a long time coming, but Iranian dogs are having their day.

Just a reminder to get your entries in for a lovely weekend's showing on 4-5 December 2010. Two All Breeds shows plus the Hound Club has a twilight Championship Show with respected Hound Specialist Mrs Wendye Slatyer on Saturday 4 December. Entries available on OzEntries. Schedules for those who like to enter the old fashioned way on the DogsACT website. See you there!

My kids get the usual, particularly when we had two smooth salukis: Passerby: Are they retired racers? Me: No, they are related to greyhounds, but these are smooth coated salukis. Passerby to wife, 2 minutes down the track: they are greyhounds you know.

A male is preferable. And yes, the dogs should meet before the rescue comes home.

OH and I spent most of today cutting back grass and doing other clearing and snake proofing work. Am trying to look on the bright side, the property probably wouldn't look as neat if we lived in New Zealand.

Whenever I am asked the question "how old is your dog" by a pet shop employee I always answer "over two" even if it's a pup. We don't feed puppy kibble to our youngsters and the last time I mentioned that I was told aggressively my breeder is dangerous (!!) and that it would be cruel not to feed puppy kibble. I dunno, but I suspect there was no Advance Puppy in the deserts of the Middle East 1000 years ago.

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