IngeK

Good post Greytmate! Couldnt have said it better. Everybody does take different discisions and think/hope they are the best but leaving your cats or dogs behind doesnt get my respect either. Personal opinion...yes and not to make any body feel quilty but thats the way I see it. Whern I talked about the 10.000 it costs us its not that we have that in our wallet every day...meaning we are not that wealthy but Id rather pay that then buy myself a new luxury thing or or on Iphone or whatever. Its just where you put your priorities and mine are with my animals. Like the "cold damp" quarantine cell .......Have you been to one of those "cells" Crazycresties? they are actually quite nice and the animals are well taken care of. Not to give you or anybody a guilt trip but to me that is one of those things to justify your own descision. Having animals is to humans benefits anyway I think.

There is nothing wring with responsibly rehoming a pet- crazy crestie did that. For a lot of people $10,000 per animal is not "a bit extra". That was not per animal that was the total

It is very costly but if you do make the move its going to cost you a lot anyway so why not pay that bit extra for your animals? It cost us about 10.000 AUD to bring over our 3 dogs and 3 cats when we came here but so well worth it! I know a lot of people that dont bring the animal because "its not fair to put the animal through the long flight or quarantine" etc but unless your animal is pretty sick its no excuse. And if the animal would be to sick to make the trip you simply wait. I wouldnt have come over myself if I wouldnt have been able to bring my animals. We had to say goodbye to 2 sheep, 2 goats and lots of chooks already which was hard enough.

sorry to only pick up point b) but responsible pet ownership has nothing to do with desexing your dog if you ask me. Youre responsible when you just make sure he doesnt do the things people always talk about that entire dogs do. No offense to you personal but I just dont get this whole thing in general. Or maybe it makes me a non resp. pet owner..but one where the dogs never attacked another, escaped or by accident jumped on a bitch Good you put this post up though and rethink what the vet told you!

Great photos, I love cats and dogs together like that.

haha even my work chair is full of dog hair

I would get him inside again. If you let him walk just before you go to bed and let him out first thing in the morning he should be alright and not have to go to the toilet. Ours go outside before we go to bed and go straight out at 5.30 again. No problem at all. I actually think about this “issue” a lot when I walk the dogs at 5.30 – 6.00 AM in the morning. There are so many outside dogs that start barking! Don’t think that would make the neighbours happy at that time of the day.

Voted “male”. Overall I like the male character better and I find them more stable.

It works here and I know it does for a lot of other people/dogs You have to train the word "quite" as well at the same time.

Teach your dog the command "bark" and praise him for barking at the time. Once he knows a command it is easier to tell him "quiet" after that again. Now he barks and when you tell him off for it he basicly doesnt know what he is doing wrong. Can always come in handy as well to make him bark when you want to. Also tell your visitors to completely ignore him when they come in your house. Once he is quiet they can give him some attention. Our German Shephards bark as well when people come in and after the first trick of this post now quite is quite and after 5 minutes they are all back to normal again.

I know a lot of Dutch people that used VCK and all are happy with the service. Dwilds, you are not allowed to pick up from the airport, AQIS does all that. You have to pick up the dog later at quarantine

Never used them myself but I have heard about them and that they do work. What you could do for a while is put on a harnes when you go for a walk, that leaves the neck free of any collar which can pull the hair out. I have done that for a while with our long haired German shepherd. Just so it will grow back again. Do you leave the collar on during the day as well? If so, I would take that off. Not only for the hair issue but it can be pretty dangerous for the dog as well.

Yes, I do, only leave them in a car in front of the supermarket when I walk in to get cigarettes and walk out again. But then all 4 windows are wide open at the stage where they just cant get out of the car. Not to flame you but just try it yourself, park the car, open the window a little bit and stay in there for 10 minutes.

Great post Steve! But isnt that the same for a lot of owners? (thats what I was getting at with the training) -rather then to put some toilet training in the dog has to live outside -rather then to put some traing in for chewing things, the dog has to live outside -rather then to work on some behaviour problems, the dogs gets dump in the kennel or even gets pts -rather then walking the dogs because they get fat, the dogs food gets changed

Dont know if they do anything about it here but in Holland you ring the police, they come and break the window, wait for the owner who then gets a fine. Some people are just soooo stupid

yep agree:) we used to take them camping through Europe and never had a problem. Only 1 time in Italy when we took the bus to Venice our dog (we had 1 at the time) had to be muzzled. All dogs had to wear a muzzle on the bus so we borrowed one at the camping...way to big for our dog but the driver was fine with it What about walking in the bush?.....no dogs! not even when on lead

We moved to Australia in 2007 from the Netherlands with our dogs and cats and I am quite shocked with the dog culture here as well. I think 95% of the dogs in Holland are inside dogs. Yes they pee and poo inside as pups but as an owner you train and train and train them so after that it doesnt happen anymore. Pups also chew on things inside and yet again..training training training. To me it seems that the majority doesnt want to train with there dogs (most people here on Dol are very responsible I guess otherwise you wont sign up to a dog forum but this is my opinion in general). Considering Holland will fit about 400 times in Australia and they have the same amount of people living there I think dogs are well more socialised. Pups get out and about as soon as you get them from the breeder (by law they have to stay with the parents till they are at least 8 weeks old) even if they didnt have all injections yet. You take them to a restaurant, make them familiar with other dogs, take them to animal farms, zoo's etc etc just so nothing seems weird to them when they grow older. I have never knows a person that didnt walk their dog and just left it at home. People are always out and about with their doggie-mates. Dogs do get abandoned offcourse but pounds dont have a kill policy and often stray dogs get imported from Greece, Spain or Romania and find a forever home where they are loved. Desexion is a big "no", cos if there is no medical reason why should you? Here the mentality is the opposite so I often get funny looks while my boys are still entire. They have never ever escaped our property, never seriously attacked another dog and never had "sex". There are some backyard breeders but no petshops where they sell dogs. Australia is a great country but I do think they can still learn a lot from some European countries referring dogownership. (edit for typo...but there are probably more mistakes )

We moved to Australia in 2007 from the Netherlands with our dogs and cats and I am quite shocked with the dog culture here as well. I think 95% of the dogs in Holland are inside dogs. Yes they pie and poo inside as pups but as an owner you train and train and train them so after that it doesnt happen anymore. Pups also chew on things inside and yet again..training training training. To me it seems that the majority doesnt want to train with there dogs (most people here on Dol are very responsible I guess otherwise you wont sign up to a dog forum but this is my opinion in general). Considering Holland will fit about 400 times in Australia and they have the same amount of people living there I think dogs are well more socialised. Pups get out and about as soon as you get them from the breeder (by law they have to stay with the parents till they are at least 8 weeks old) even if they didnt have all injections yet. You take them to a restaurant, make them familiar with other dogs, take them to animal farms, zoo's etc etc just so nothing seems weird to them when they grow older. I have never knows a person that didnt walk their dog and just left it at home. People are always out and about with their doggie-mates. Dogs do get abandoned offcourse but pounds dont have a kill policy and often stray dogs get imported from Greece, Spain or Romania and find a forever home where they are loved. Desexion is a big "no", cos if there is no medical reason why should you? Here the mentality is the opposite so I often get funny looks while my boys are still entire. They have never ever escaped our property, never seriously attacked another dog and never had "sex". There are some backyard breeders but no petshops where they sell dogs. Australia is a great country but I do think they can still learn a lot from some European countries referring dogownership.

Same here, so voted for GSD. They're such good dogs and mates!

No Austen, didnt go on for long and it was mainly when I was in there feeding the chooks. Then a firm "no" was enough to make him stop. Just see how you go your dog might not have a problem at all

Our dogs and cats just wander through the back yard together without any problems we often get questions from visitors how it is possible they all get a long When we just had the chooks we had them locked up for a couple of months and the dogs found that a lot more interesting...read..running in front of the chookpen barking. Now when they are free there is no problem at all anymore.

We came from Amsterdam about 3 years ago and used a local shipper but the animals flew with Malaysian. I think most of them use Malaysian because of the short stopover. Friends of us went back to Holland last year with their 2 dogs and used Jetpets as well together with Malaysian. No dramas at all. you dont have quarantine so pretty good to go that way with your dogs ..compared to coming here

arent those more for dogs with longer hair so it doesnt brake that easy (the hair that is)?

Shes very cute and still looks really good!

Yes, thats a very scarey thought isnt it?