Aphra

I just wanted to avoid the people who think they like the idea of a working breed, but haven't thought it through in an urban environment. Liam isn't as super active as some working breeds I've had through, but needs lots of interaction, he loves just working with you. But there are lots of great dogs out there who would suit, so if not Liam I'm sure another dog will find an excellent home. :-)

We have Liam. He's a bit of an idiot, but endlessly good natured with other dogs and learns really fast. I've listed him as not really suitable for an urban environment because he's really active, but with lots of exercise and other dogs for company he'd be good I think. He's a Border Collie Xed with something, possibly cattle dog or Kelpie. Good with cats, good other dogs, good with horses and crate trained. http://www.petrescue...listings/172217 Edited to add. there are three videos of Liam on the listing, but you have to copy and paste the links. But they give a pretty good idea of him. Edited again to remove Hetty because she's not a male. I'm getting old and forgetful!

The real answer to your question is that you need to find a reputable rescue group, because making sure the dog and their new family are compatible is the whole point for a good rescue group. The point I'd really like to address is the idea that there is something wrong with rescue dogs and that you're going to face lots of issues with one. Rescue is only a description of the current situation of a dog who is in the care of a rescue group, it's a temporary designation for a particular moment in that dog's life. The thing is, if you choose well and go through a good rescue group, you won't have any major issues with dog you adopt from them. In fact if you choose well, you shouldn't have any issues at all. Dog come into rescue for all sorts of reasons; but lots of times it's just because they got unlucky. The pound is full of good dogs who just need another home, they are not broken or badly behaved, just unfortunate in their circumstances. Sometimes dogs do come in with issues (mostly due to being young, energetic and untrained in my experience), but rescue groups put in the work with those dogs before they go home. If your husband is resistant to taking on a rescue dog because he thinks of it as a project, I can imagine he'd be unhappy with the idea. But if you think of it as a fun way to find a really nice dog and give it another chance, then its a much more enticing proposition. Don't adopt a rescue dog because you feel sorry for it, but because you see a really good dog who would make a great match for you and your current dog. If, with the help of a good rescue group, you choose a dog which is suitable for you in temperament, activity level and personality, you won't face any issues greater than you would with any other dog, purebred included. I've been doing rescue for several years and to my mind the really challenging, difficult dogs with serious issues are in the minority of the pound population. Older dogs are generally easier to house-train than puppies because they have stronger bladders and a longer attention span. And as long as you pick a dog which is within your ambit of experience (so no super active untrained working breeds unless that's your level of experience), you shouldn't have any extraordinary training issues. You will have some training to do, as you would with any dog at all I'd totally encourage you to not think about taking on something broken and hoping you can fix it, but looking for a fabulous dog who will complement your family. Choose an ethical, reputable group, look for a dog who has been in foster care and expect real honesty from the people you are dealing with. Listen to what they say about the dogs and expect that they will listen carefully to what you want.

I found this yesterday while looking for another quote.

The fact that the dog apparently hadn't got out before and had ulcerated pressure sores suggest that it was tethered doesn't it? I've had 68 kilo dogs who didn't ever have pressure sores of any kind, but of course, they didn't spend their lives sleeping on concrete either.

I think updates are the reward for doing the work. Seeing photos of dogs who were so down on their luck transformed into much-loved family members is such a thrill. I have to say that maybe Peis have better memories than other dogs, because on the occasion fosters have come back to visit me they've been very off-hand. LOL

Edmonton in Canada has repealed its breed specific legislation. This is the report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/109410329/Report-on-restricting-dogs-by-breed They consulted seven different major companion animal stakeholders who were unanimous in their lack of support for BSL, which is true of the major groups in the US as well: http://stopbsl.org/bsloverview/the-lack-of-professional-support/ In a win for commonsense, Edmonton revised legislation is putting more emphasis on making owners responsible for their dogs' behaviour.

There were 31 fatal dog attacks in the US in 2011 out of a dog population of around 78 million. There were about 100 horse related deaths. About 7 million people ride horses. Clearly horses are a greater risk factor than dogs. In fact a proper calculation would take into account proximity and temporality as well; horses don't tend to live in our houses or wander our streets, so that in fact dogs have much greater proximity to humans for more of the time, but kill them less often than horses. In Australia there have been 27 fatal dog attacks since 2000 and 77 horse related deaths in the same period.

With some of the people on this thread it's like playing whack-a-mole. Smack 'em on the head with a few facts and they pop up somewhere else with another non sequitur.

We get quite a lot of updates from people, both from email and via our Facebook page. It's particularly fun when we get to see our puppies when they grow up. We have a really lovely experience this weekend. One of our puppies (now all grown up) was surrendered back to us for chasing stock. One of our Facebook friends is someone who adopted one of the other puppies in the litter and they were thinking about a second dog. So they brought Milly out to meet Marnie. I swear Marnie knew her sister the minute she set eyes on her, she's really dog social anyway, but she was so super excited to see Milly. After a couple of minutes of reintroduction they played themselves to a standstill. So Marnie went off to live with her sister and they're both having a wonderful time. They're almost identical, except Marnie is a bit hairer. They have very similar temperaments too. As a litter they got on really well together and they've all grown up to be really social with other dogs. I love the look on Marnie's face in this one. They just flopped down all tangled together.

In Ireland there are ten controlled breeds: In the UK there are four breeds of banned dogs. It's worth reading the UK legislation (I've put the link at the bottom of the quote). Because this is the outcome of the Coroner's recommendation. Animal control officers can, and do, seize dogs off the street, on the basis of how they look, even if the dog has no history of bad behavioiur and doing nothing other than having a particular appearance. There are no mentions in either legislation of "Irish Staffys". Staffords and other dogs, including pedigreed dogs with papers are restricted in many European countries. Germany has 42 breeds of dog with restrictions placed on them, and bans on " Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and the Bull Terrier." In fact Germany has some of the strictest dog laws and is one of the most dog unfriendly countries in Europe. They had four fatal dog attacks in 2010, although their breed legislation was introduced in 2001. Across Europe there were 15 fatal dog attacks. That is out of a human population of nearly 750 million. I'm fascinated by the constant inclusion of the Fila, Dogo and Tosa in these lists. I can't find any statistics on dog attacks on South America right now, but I'd be interested to see them if anyone has the stats. But the Dogo, Fila and Tosa are rare breeds outside their own countries, so clearly their inclusion in the lists across Australia, the UK and Europe is based on myth rather than any evidence. If anyone is interested in the history of BSL, Karen Delise's book "The Pit Bull Placebo" is available for free download as an ebook from the National Canine Research Council. www.nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/

I think the bigger issue here (which is not to say that the fate of dogs is insignificant, our current legislation is not ethical, it's not humane and it's not even effective), is that as long as we feel able to blame the breed and not the way a dog is raised, handled, cared-for and trained as the issue, then we can only ever go around in ever-diminishing circles. Say that as a society we actually manage to eradicate all dogs that are Pit Bulls or look like Pit Bulls. What happens when there is the next fatal dog attack? The rate of deaths by dog have been 0-2 a year in Australia for decades, and all sorts of breeds and crossbreeds of dogs have been implicated. Before Ayen Chol, a child was killed by one of her neighbour's crossbreed hunting dogs, and before that a man was fatally mauled by a group of camp dogs. In each case the kind of dog was different, So we have no Pit Bulls to blame; the witch hunt starts all over again with a different type of dog, which will get to wear the mantle of dog in a demon suit, as the Bloodhound, German Shepherd, Doberman and Rottweiler all have in the past. These are the 2009 statistics from the US. Or a complete list of fatal dogs attacks in Canada since 1964. One of those fatal dog attacks was by a Pit Bull type, yet Ontario banned Pit Bulls and Pit Bull types since 2005. Clearly since Pit Bulls weren't actually an issue for Canada, the banning of Pit Bulls had nothing to do with ensuring public safety and everything to do with using nonsense legislation to ease public anxiety. And before I am once again accused of being a rabid pack because I've introduced statistics into the argument, I'll even provide some references and resources which suggest a more reasoned and rational approach to public safety. Canine Research Council US: http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/publications/ncrc-publications/ Dangerous Dogs: a Sensible Solution Australian Veterinary Association July 2012: http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/publications/ncrc-publications/ The example of Calgary in Canada: http://www.savingpets.com.au/2009/10/what-a-difference-a-pound-makes-2/

To clean up sloppies from carpet use something like cheap shampoo or dishwashing liquid which is quite viscous (sort of like liquid jelly). Cover the stain with the shampoo and leave it for about ten minutes. The sloppies flocculate up into the shampoo and you can use something to scrape it off the surface of the carpet, and then just use plain water to clean the spot left. This works better with fresh stuff which hasn't been allowed to dry.

This site is still active: http://perfectpetfinder.com.au There was a thread about them a while ago. http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/222557-perfect-pet-finder/

It's worth checking your messages area in Pet Rescue account. We've had some Pet Rescue enquiries so I assumed it was working, but when I went in and looked there were several enquries which didn't come through to our email. We have a gmail account, so no idea why they PR messages wouldn't get through, they're not showing up in the spam folder either.

I'd hope that's not true; it takes a bit of time to navigate around a new site and work out what is new functionality as opposed to what doesn't work. And given that so many rescuers are volunteers with jobs and other things to do, it's not like we all have heaps of spare time to spend working things out. I didn't get an email asking my opinion, I only received one asking for details for logging in. I was a bit surprised at the lack of consultation with stakeholders, since we're the content that the Pet Rescue brand is built on. I was talking to one of the bigger groups in Victoria today and they are really unhappy and have noticed that their enquiries are way down.

We don't rehome any bull breed, bull breed x or dog who looks like it might have had a great aunt who once had a brief liaison with a bull breed, anymore. It's heart-breaking to have to say no to lovely, happy, sane dogs, but the risk to the dog is just too great to rehome them in Victoria.

I'm happy to spend a bit of time on the weekend and collate the issues raised in this thread and post them on the Pet Rescue support page. Or we could just direct Pet Rescue to this thread. It would be really interesting to get some feedback on the user experience; we listed a small, young, fluffy, female dog earlier in the week and we've had one application for her. Normally we'd expect several. I just went to Pet Rescue as a user and not a rescuer and tried to search for a dog. I'm using Firefox. I clicked on "small" but it kept reverting to "all" and I ended up with over 3000 listings. In fact no matter what search I tried I ended up with the same number of dogs. Then I went to Internet Explorer and discovered that things like the search button don't even appear in Firefox. Since Firefox accounts for about 22% of browsers out there, you can probably assume that that little issue already cuts out a fifth of possible adopters. The upside is, if anyone here teaches IT project management or the importance of stakeholder engagement in project management, you've got a classic, contemporary case study right here.

Good point melzawlza, I will try and resist the temptation. :-) David Marr called legislation like BSL, "the scar tissue of old panics'. He was referring to the kind of junk legislation which has been enacted in the past around points of social outrage (such as anti-Communist legislation during the Cold War era). As I discussed in my blog post, I think the BSL issue is deeply emotional and sub-rational, certainly could be characterised as a panic, particularly if you use the classical definition of panic, which is a sudden, overwhelming, but causeless and unreasonable fear. Peter Sandman points out that you can't manage outrage with evidence, no matter how robust your evidence-base. I suppose people like steamboat are indicators of that irrational response; certainly it's much easier for people to believe that they are safe because of legislation, even if the legislation is ineffectual, because that provides them with symbolic safety. It's easier to believe legislation is a silver bullet for the (were)wolf amongst us, than to contemplate the real issues.

I actually hate the fact that I have to list my phone number on Pet Rescue now. I work full time and I can't answer all the calls I get during the day. Returning the calls is costing me a fortune. It was much easier when people had to send an email. Most of the enquiries are simple and could be dealt with by email, but all those ten minute return calls are having a big effect on my mobile bill.

For someone who was complaining about internet bullying because I said I don't think you know what you are talking about, you see remarkably happy make personal comments about people you know nothing about. Cosmolo doesn't need me to defend her; the extent of her knowledge, training and experience with dogs of all breeds and kinds. The fact that you feel free to make personal attacks not on the content of Cosmolo's post but on her as a person says quite a lot about your capacity to argue a rational case. I'm not answering you in any attempt to change your mind, since that's clearly a fruitless endeavour, but I would hate anyone reading this thread thinking that you're actually making a good argument for your position. Banning four restricted breeds from importation has clearly worked since they have not been imported. There's no good evidence that there were dogs of four of the restricted breeds in Australia before the importation bans went into effect anyway. So if you're suggesting that their is a spate of people being injured by Japanese Tosa or Fila, you're looking at a different set of statistics to everyone else. APBT xs are not restricted breeds in the current restricted breed legislation. The legislation says that dogs which fit the "type" of one of the five restricted breeds may be seized by council. If you have an APBT crossed with a Collie and it looks more like a Collie the legislation isn't interested. The restricted breed legislation is on the DPI's website if you'd like to read it. I'm not sure why you assume that opposing restricted ownership of APBTs has failed, since there's no sensible measure of success. Fatal dogs attacks on people are so rare that the only way of actually preventing them altogether would be to ban all dogs. The rate of fatal attacks by dogs on humans has remained at the rate of 0-2 a year for three decades; the introduction of BSL has not affected any change on those statistics. And those rare attacks are by an whole raft of different breeds of dog and cross-breeds of dog. And Pits or bull breeds of any kind are not heavily represented in the statistics. Dog breed identification is also notoriously unreliable. The point is that for dogs which kill or seriously injure humans, the commonality is not the breed of dog, but the circumstances in which the dog is kept and managed. Entire males, dogs which are kept chained and dogs which are resident as opposed to family dogs (dogs kept in backyards on chains, dogs which live entirely in kennels, camp dogs and etc). This is not my opinion, this is based on a very considerable body of good research over a couple of decades. If you have not already read the research, you might wish to read the Australian Veterinary Association's "Dangerous dogs - a sensible solution". There are several pages of references and useful statistics. http://www.ava.com.au/sites/default/files/AVA_website/pdfs/Dangerous%20dogs%20-%20a%20sensible%20solution%20FINAL.pdf BTW, No they are not. Under the Australian legal system, the police must produce evidence which proves, beyond all reasonable doubt, that a person convicted of a crime, has, in fact, committed that crime. The basis of our legal system is "innocent until proven guilty". The defendant does not have to prove innocence, the prosecution has to prove guilt. That is why we have a trial by jury for serious crimes. I have no idea where you are getting your information from. For example, In 2010/11 in NSW Staffordshire Bull Terriers were responsible for 650 attacks on humans and/or animals (these figures lump together all attacks including those which result in only minor injury).. But that represents only 0.9 of dog attacks because Staffords are very popular breed of dog. There are more of them than of many other breeds. These figures haven't changed much over the last couple of years.

No. Did you actually read the report? The Coroner's judgement relied on the assumption that there is something about Pit Bulls or Pit Bull crosses which makes them inherently dangerous. Making SOME dog owners responsible for identifying the breeds of their dogs, goes nowhere near managing the onus on ALL owners of ALL breeds of dog, to ensure that their dogs are appropriately managed and treated to minimise the risk of that dog hurting someone. It fact it gives the owners of other breeds a free pass to assume that as long as their dog is not "that breed" they don't have anything to worry about. Concentrating on one type of dog flies in the face of all the evidence-based research (evidence-based research as opposed to ill-informed opinion based on myth, supposition and anecdote) which tells us that the way dogs are kept, managed and treated much stronger indicators of their likelihood of causing harm dogs than their breed. If the Coroner had started the investigation looking at the way this dog was kept and managed, instead of eliding that evidence in favour of a breed identification based on visual evidence by one vet, she might have gone some distance toward identifying those factors which make some dogs dangerous. I would have though the fact that this dog, which the owners had had since it was a puppy, had ulcerated pressure sores, some as long as 55 mm on all its joints and hips, might have been evidence that this was not a well-looked after dog who suddenly ran amok because of breed disposition. Really, having an opinion is not the same thing as having a clue.

Yep. I'm lucky enough to live on acreage. When I'm home my dogs have the run of the property, but unless I'm with them, they don't leave the house yard by choice, and generally they're either just poking about or sleeping in the grass. If I go out onto the rest of the property they come with me, but they don't run of their own accord. When I'm not home they're confined to their runs or inside the house. I'm not interested in them getting out and chasing stock, running onto the road or otherwise getting into trouble. In my experience dogs are most active in the morning and evening, during the day they're mostly asleep or just hanging about. I suppose it's the pattern of predators, most active at dusk and dawn when prey animals are around.

Reading the Coroner's report is in equal parts interesting and heart breaking. Some of the child's death are graphic and very distressing, so please be warned if you are going to read it. The evidence from the vet who examined the dog in the first instance is disturbing. The vets who gave evidence about the dog's breed draw conclusions about its behaviour based on their identification of it as a Pit Bull. One of the vets gave evidence about the dog's condition which very clearly indicates that the dog, while of good weight, was in poor condition (I've attached a photo of the relevant section). The report goes into great detail about identifying the breeding of the dog, but there's little about how it was kept, managed or socialised. From the report it seems that the owner's evidence of how and why the dog was kept was accepted without question. My reading of it is, that once the breed of the dog was established, the assumption was that breed was sufficient explanation of behaviour. From the reported condition of the dog, it clearly fits into the category which the US Center for Canine Research calls "resident dogs", which are dogs which live on the property, but which are not family dogs. The condition of the dog strongly suggests that apart from yearly vaccinations and food, it didn't get the necessary veterinary attention to what must have been painful sores. My sense is that this is a very political document, designed to support the current legislation. It recycles unquestioningly the mythology about bull breeds, and completely misses any opportunity to investigate why this particular dog, in this circumstance, behaved in such a way. I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed, that the tragic death of a child hasn't prompted a proper and serious investigation into the issue, and has instead relied on superficial observations which are completely unsupported by any of the evidence-based research available. I think Ayen Chol and her family have been short-changed in their grief by a shallow political agenda. I don't think I'd be drawing too big a conclusion to suggest that a dog with those kind of pressure sores is not a cherished family pet, and that it probably lived in the garage on concrete (I'd even guess it was tethered because otherwise you'd think it would be out every time the garage door was opened), didn't spend a lot of time with humans, was clearly under-socialised, under-exercised, in pain, and once it was out, it's level of arousal was extreme.

Just a heads up as well, which might be important for people who are lucky enough to have professional photographers do their animal photos. I was reading through the code of ethics on the new site and there is this line, "All information, including photos, contact information and animal descriptions posted to the website, becomes the property of PetRescue and may be used in promotions and for marketing purposes." It's quite possible it was on the last site as well, I just don't remember reading it. Essentially you are assigning your copyright over to Pet Rescue, which might, or might not matter, but is worth knowing.