Maddy

One of mine donated some blood last night and he did a flinch/GSOD and now I have stained clothing and he has a haematoma. My old guy used to scream if you touched his ears. Or cut his nails. Or just tried to gently handle his feet. My neighbours probably think I murder dogs in here :| (Poddy certainly seems to think there was an attempted murder last night)

In my vast experience cutting velociraptor greyhound nails, best way to do it is this: First, get yourself some strong, good quality nail clippers. Your fingers will thank you for that later. Rather than worrying about the tips immediately, start by using the clippers to shave away the tough outer layer of the nail, from about halfway down the nail. Don't go too crazy with this, you want want to soften the nail overall. You do this by holding the clippers at an angle and cutting/shaving toward the tip. Once you've shaved off top and sides, you can easily nip the tip off with zero greyhound screams of death. Once that's done, use one side of the blade to scrape away the edges from underneath. If this edge is left, it joins up as the tip grows, making future trims harder. This method makes the whole nail a bit softer, which means it wears faster when walking on abrasive surfaces. From what I've seen, quicks recede at a glacial pace, if at all, so it's better to try to just soften everything up and keep it wearing effectively. Oh, other thing is, I've found the vast majority of greyhounds cope much better with nail trims if they are lying down, on their side. Put a suitably long-lasting and yummy treat at the pointy end and talk to them as you handle their feet. If you can avoid hurting them, most catch on pretty quickly that nail trims are not so scary. With black nails, the trick is to take tiny bits off the tip until you can see the beginnings of a small, blacker dot in the middle of the nail. Once you spy that, stop taking length and focus just on softening up the rest of the nail.

I've fed raw to many dogs over many years and never had any trouble with chicken. Even in dogs who were raised and fed 100% kibble diet and then switched to raw food with me, their guts adjust and cope with no problems. It's almost as if dogs were made to eat meat or something? The fact that the true likelihood of disease (even assuming the campylobacter is the causative agent) is very low, was glossed over by many news outlets wanting a juicy headline. "Eating raw chicken has tiny, tiny, tiny risks involved, the same as any diet, at all" isn't going to get clicks (and clicks = money from advertisements). The way this article has been framed by many outlets and Facebook pages, you'd think the study had concluded that feeding chicken to dogs kills 100% of dogs, 100% of the time and while it's at it, also uses your toilet and doesn't flush, and leaves toast crumbs in your bed. What should have looked like this: "Study suggests correlation between X and Y, concludes possibility of risk" instead looks like.. "COULD YOU BE UNKNOWINGLY KILLING YOUR DOG WITH CHICKEN??? ZOMG CHICKEN WILL PARALYSE YOU DOG SCIENCE SAID SO" The biggest problem with this study is that it didn't really account for how/when the dogs began carrying campylobacter. We live very close to a fairly popular dog walking spot and out of curiosity, I tested both sources of water there- a small lake and a rivulet. Both were only a couple of CFU shy of being notifiable (this was during winter, summer would probably have been over the amount). Plenty of dogs swim in and drink the water, ingesting plenty of bacteria from a number of sources. This water is not known for being dirty (and it's certainly cleaner than the drinking troughs in a lot of dog parks) and is just another in a long list of ways that dogs can end up carrying potentially troublesome bacteria in their guts. We're talking about a species that looks upon duck poo like it's ambrosia from the gods themselves. Even if you make a point of feeding your dog only the most sterile of sterile kibbles, your dog would still likely drink out of a dirty puddle if it got a chance because dogs are inherently sort of gross that way (no offense dogs).

No one was excusing the incident because they were sighthounds. As for sighthounds not wanting to chase "just anything", a cat is not just anything and in my experience (owning and rescuing many sighthounds), many will absolutely chase a cat, if they get a chance. This is one of the reasons it's very unwise to walk them off leash. They will chase things that move, whether it be a cat or a plastic bag, blowing in the wind. Chasing things, by sight, is exactly their purpose, as a type.

For Tasmania, attacking any animal, even a pest species, is against the law. As to what will happen, depends on the council. Most are disinterested in dealing with dog issues. Some (like LCC) will deal with dogs where livestock is involved. In the case of a cat.. I wouldn't expect much, unless the cat's owner lawyers up and starts getting loud. Even then, DD order, at most. I've only known of a couple of attacking dogs to be euthanised but that was because of fairly extreme non-compliance from the owners (who had no f**** to give). That said, I think it would be wise to try to smooth things over with the cat's owners. Offer to pay for cremation or a memorial (don't offer to buy them a new cat. Srsly.), send them a card, make them aware that the dogs' owners are aware that they need to fix the issue and what steps they are taking. Personally, I wouldn't walk two large sighthounds together. All it takes is one to see a cat and then it's chaos. I'd stick to one at a time, wearing a muzzle. if they can't control one between the two of them, perhaps large, strong sighthounds are not a suitable type of dog for them.

I knew the posting style was familiar, but couldn't put my finger on it. You're probably right though, there have been plenty of miraculous reincarnations of various personalities, over the years. Oh, and hey, he's now a suspended user. Pandi wins the intehwebs for today! <- Pandi, with intehwebs trophy

But the studies don't suggest that at all? The second one included a list of health issues associated with desexing, which included obesity. There was no suggestion at all that desexing, or diet following desexing, might lead to issues such as coprophagia. Your theories seem to contain an awful lot of conjecture, being worded in a way that suggests that it is fact. For example.. you suggest wolves "might" eat the faeces of rival wolves. They either do or they don't, and if you're claiming coprophagy is a territorial behaviour, by way of such an example, you're going to need to provide some evidence. As far as AB use goes, again, it sort of seems as if you're thoroughly determined to find some physical explanation for a behaviour that is already known to not necessarily be physical in cause. My coprophagic dog's favourite poo comes from one of my other dogs. This dog has never been given antibiotics, eats raw meat from a local producer who is very strict about observing witholding periods and whose gut health appears to be excellent. The poo eater learned a natural behaviour from his mother and that behaviour was not limited when it should have been. End result is a dog with a compulsion to eat something that does not benefit him. In fact, contrary to the odd claim about worms in the original article, my coprophagic dog has picked up worms from eating poo. As an aside, did your pregnant wife get so befuddled in her hunger that she was snacking from the toilet? If she was, I suggest that in future, you may wish to supply her with food. I've had two children, myself, and when I felt hungry (which was no more severe than regular hunger), I got something from the fridge, not the bathroom.

The dog in question continued to do it long after his adult teeth came in. And although he is now desexed, it hasn't made the problem any worse. He shows no preference between poo from raw fed dogs and that from dogs fed kibble. I think it's also worth pointing out that nutrient deficiencies are not the same thing as just an increased appetite. A dog of mine required medication that caused fairly severe polyphagia and despite being constantly hungry, he never attempted to eat poo (or anything else abnormal, for that matter). I think it's safe to assume that pica/abnormal eating behaviours are likely caused by either some behavioural issue (as can be seen in humans who feel a compulsion to eat abnormal things, and can trace that back to some triggering event) or actual nutrient deficiencies. I find it hard to believe that desexing a dog might increase its appetite so severely that it would spontaneously become coprophagic. The study you linked certainly doesn't draw that conclusion.

Perhaps in some situations, that might be the case but I have a coprophagic dog, myself, and he was doing it from the first day we brought him home. He and our other two dogs are raw fed and get a range of protein sources. In his case, I suspect it was learned behaviour because he doesn't just eat it, he also likes to play with it. If I had to guess, I'd say causes would likely vary. Besides the poo eater, I've had one other dog with pica and his preferred things to eat were rocks (but only gravel rocks) and bleach (which made cleaning a bit of a challenge). He was otherwise a very healthy dog with no other abnormal behaviours

Wow, it's almost as if everything the dog's owner said was a lie. How surprising. Not that the statement has stopped Kodi's Army at all. I guess once you're fully invested in that pile of crazy, it's hard to step back and admit that everything you believed was a lie and that the "horrible monster children" were the unfortunate victims of the sort of mistake many of US might have made as kids- took a shortcut home, got badly mauled by a dog and then accused of being an animal abuser and general incorrigible monster on social media. From the comments on TasPol's FB page.. As if this justifies being mauled by a dog, and then torn apart by adults who were arguably even more vicious than the dog. This herplerderper, who is politely ignoring the fact that the ONLY story the media ran was the dog owner's side of things. As if the dog owner didn't loudly spread her version of events, every chance she got? Yeah, being severely mauled and ending up in hospital, that'll teach those little delinquents. I guess some people are really not happy to see the truth has been made public. Yeah, shame on TasPol for posting the facts of a case, instead of letting one side stir up threats of violence and general nastiness, completely unabated. How very dare they (TasPol) interfere (in a police case?) that has nothing to do with them (that they, as the police, were rightfully investigating?) because it casts the side they personally favoured in a less than favourable way. On the internet, even if you are completely, demonstrably wrong, if you screech and carry on loudly enough, you can pretend you were right almost indefinitely. Kodi's Army is a perfect example of that.

Same. Possibly with some staffy or amstaff in there but definitely not much (if any) bull mastiff that I can see. From the two pictures I saw, he's not what I'd describe as a typical bull arab, either. No sign of dane or any other molosser, no slant to the eyes from bull terrier or ticking from pointer, overall look is wrong. Maybe one parent was a roo dog and I'd guess greyhound in his background is very likely but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter much. A panicked, single bite from sleep startles would be one thing but it sounds as if this dog bit repeatedly, over a substantial area. Whether or not the attack had anything to do with the object in the photo (which may or may not have belonged to the current owner of the dog), who knows. That said, I'm willing to bet that people who take casual photos of their dogs with incidental drug paraphernalia are probably not the sort of people who take the time to socialise and appropriately manage their dog's behaviours.

Oh, christ yes. I can remember some crazy trainwrecks, many centered around a user with a cephalopodic sort of user name, in OT. Some were kind of funny but many of those sorts of threads ended up being utterly vicious and anyone who claims they don't remember Dol as being that bad is either lying or just has really crappy memory. Same with the bullying. With a lot of the "old Dol" cliques gone, it's nowhere near as common as it used to be. I can remember one user in particular (whose name we won't mention) who was hounded mercilessly over every thing she posted. Some criticisms were perhaps warranted but this person struck me as a desperate people-pleaser who just wanted to be told, for once in her life, that she was doing okay. Not that I'm suggesting anyone should have lied to protect her feelings but criticism can be delivered with a spoonful of sugar (or a copper mug full of lukewarm craft brewed dark ale- whatever floats your boat). There seems to be significantly less need for outside moderation these days and I think part of the reason is that the culture of Dol has changed. And with that, behaviour of a lot of the older members has also changed. I recently banned myself from a certain thread and as much as I'm itching to go back in there, I won't. No good would come of it anyway and I've already said my piece (anything else would be just pointless repetition at this stage). On the other hand, the last time there was a issue that needed moderating (involving a man in tighty-whiteys), it was started by a fairly popular "old Doler" and even though he was very careful to word insults in a way that made it possible for him to easily retract the actual meaning, it was truly some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen. I earned myself a doliday for expressing my disgust of his behaviour. Fun times, a real throwback to the "good old days" of Dol. <-- insert Mr Rolly Eyes here

If products are short-dated, Budget Pet Products always lists them with that information. The price difference is significant but that seems to be a thing for pet products generally. Go into a brick and mortar pet shop and for many things, you'll often pay a lot more than you would online. For the size of wormers/flea treatments I buy a lot of, the price difference can be as high as $40 per pack. At the moment, the current price difference between Budget Pet Products and one of the chain pet stores in our area is $67 per 6 pack of Advocate

People have been openly judgey around here since forever, it's not any worse than it was when Dol was popular. Facebook was the beginning of the end for Dol, partly because variety of groups means you can talk only with people who will agree with you, if a bunch of pointless nodding is your idea of a good discussion. This thread certainly got off topic but I felt the tone was just a bit silly, not unwelcoming or mean

Has two identical posts, bumps a 6 year old thread, posts link to non-Australian products.. seem legit.

There's a definite cross-section between the two. They're definitely not real hippies (because they just couldn't live without their soy chai (consumed from a $200 keep cup) or their $15 craft beer, but equally, they'd never miss a Greens rally and claim to be really concerned about whatever it is that makes logging a certain area concerning (ask them for specifics, 9/10 will not have bothered to even Google the issue first). The local hipsters just want to wear their tight-in-all-sorts-of-weird-places chinos and go about their business: *From the diary of a hipster. Imagine this written in flowing script, because he's currently learning calligraphy* 9:00, appointment with the barber-surgeon, trim beard and check humours. St Johns Square. Note to self: need new mason jar for urine collection. 9:30, to the haberdasher in Yorktown Square, for man-bun twine. Perhaps enquire as to the costs of setting up a hobby in tatting lace? Bet no one else does that yet. 10:00, drink one warm, muddy craft beer from a copper mug at The Iron Monger's Hut, totes fav craft beer place. I mean.. very authentic experience, copper helps control acidity of the draught. 11:00, visit tailor, to be fitted for new chinos. Need larger pockets in back so that I can store handcrafted wallet in there. Groin is still a bit loose, reproductive organs haven't been crushed to the point of atrophy. How can I claim that my arguments aren't gendered if I still have a penis? 12:00, browse vintage records at the record store/cafe with Calen, August and Hudson. Calen's favourite drink is the aged second Earl Grey tea, made with tepid reclaimed water, sugar squeezed from fermented rye grain and walnut milk. He's such a pretentious dick, I bet he doesn't even add bergamot to everything he cooks. Danois, I'm up the other end of the state (Hobart is a terrible place, no offense Hobart people but.. christ..) but if you ever visit Launceston, Elaia Cafe seems to be predominantly frequented by owners of goose down jacket vests, and very sparse on those who have dreaded their underarm hair. It's not exactly hipster (nothing is served out of copper) but perhaps that's because it's too popular to be trendy. In Hobart, perhaps try one of the Hill Street Grocers stores? They sell gourmet artisanal locavore cheese so they should be able to make you a decent coffee. Personally, I don't partake of the devil's pond water myself. I buy a bottle of Red Eye on the way to lab in the morning, from the local IGA. I don't know if it's sustainably sourced caffeine or if the company undertakes to employ at least 50% women but it keeps me from dozing off at the bench and that's about all I need from it.

Agree with Rascal and Powerlegs, it sounds like a sad, lonely life for any animal, but even more so for a social animal. Providing the bare basics for welfare (food/water/shelter/limited exercise) is not the same as being a good owner. That said, judging from your responses so far, I don't think you actually want other peoples' opinions, I think you want to hear that you are a good, responsible dog owner, despite your neighbour's complaints. To be honest, I think some situations just aren't right for dog ownership and yours would definitely be one of them.

This. We've had a few near-misses in our yard and it infuriates me that I should have to worry about the welfare of the neighbours' cats when they clearly don't give a crap. Why should I have to limit my dogs' access to their own yard (and spend a lot of money raising fence height to try to keep cats out), just because someone else thinks their DOMESTIC ANIMAL is some sort of wild creature that requires access to everyone else's yards to fight, toilet and create more cats. I'm so sick of seeing missing cat posts on FB that say stuff like "Never usually wanders too far but this time.." or "Generally comes back after a few days but we haven't seen him in a week..". In most of those cases, the cat is never found and in all likelihood, it's dead somewhere. Possibly a slow, agonising death from a traffic accident. Or killed by a dog. Or badly wounded fighting another cat. What kind of responsible pet owner would be willing to risk any of those outcomes, just to satisfy their cat's imagined "special needs"?

It seems like an obvious thing but then, plenty of people think it's perfectly acceptable to cut the tails and thumbs off unanaesthetised young puppies too so.. It's sort of like the argument that was (and I guess still is) often trotted out in support of circumcision in baby boys: That at that age, they can't feel pain but even if they did, they won't remember it anyway. Which is basically saying that it's fine to inflict pain and likely significant distress, as long as you assume they'll forget about it later.

Surf Dog Australia has beach-proof collars, harnesses, leads,etc. They also sell beach robes and rash vests for dogs. https://www.surfdogaustralia.com/

Some do, some don't. I've had senior greys with crisp, clear brands but on the other hand, younger greys with brands that were either barely legible or not legible at all. Some had been placed where there was significant hair growth, which was entirely user error but others should not have faded as badly as they did. Also, because of how it is done, there is always the possibility of brands being misread during to partial fading. 8 becomes 5 or zero and so on. To rely on them for identification would be very foolish, in my opinion. Greyhounds are not anaesthetised for ear brands and apparently, their ears are not checked at all prior to beginning. Idiot Dog had very severe ear mites when his were done and cleaning up his ears was revolting- the pain from the infection caused by mites, compounded by the pain of someone crushing large pins into your pinnae.. It rarely leaves lasting physical damage but anyone who thinks it's a pain-free procedure or that puppies "forget" the experience is out to breakfast, lunch and tea (and I'd bet they certainly wouldn't be willing to volunteer to have it done to them )

What applies to one individual and their bite inhibition might not apply to another of the same breed though. I've been bitten by a chihuahua (while cutting the poor dog's monstrously overgrown nails) and the pain was incredible. Thin, small teeth that are blunt at the ends (unlike cat teeth that are sharper and piece with less force), driven into my fingers with a lot of pressure. The holes were small but the surrounding tissue was badly damaged and I'd say easily the most painful bite I've ever gotten. On the other hand, I was bitten by my 30kg greyhound (post ictal state, my own fault for not keeping him quiet) and although it wasn't fun, it hurt a lot less and healed much quicker. Bearing in mind that this was during a state where his inhibitions were significantly lowered so the difference between the two incidents is incredible, when you think about it. That doesn't mean all greyhound bites are better than all chihuahua bites, just a difference in individuals. That said, my personal experience has been that smaller dogs are more likely to bite, to start with. Sure, they generally do less physical damage but owners are often totally unconcerned by the aggression or even think it's funny. Aggression in larger dogs is almost always taken seriously and you can bet if a large dog bites a person, it'll be much more likely to be destroyed than a smaller dog.

I know of a few vets who will don't give owners a say in it and that, I think, isn't right. Tattoos aren't guaranteed to last and owners should be made aware of that and given a choice. Ear tipping is another method of identifying desexed animals but that has its own drawbacks- more painful and could be mistaken as just an old injury- and besides microchips (which can also malfunction), there's just is no permanent and definite way to mark desexed animals. It seems like it should be an easy problem to fix but the more you think about it, the more factors you have to consider (size of animal, coat length, skin colour, etc.). Ideally, you'd want something permanent, something that doesn't mar the animal's appearance (which matters a lot for some people) and something that could be detected with a fairly basic tool. Also, maybe somewhere easier to get a good look at. With cats and their upright ears, it's not too bad but a freaked out dog with floppy ears who doesn't want his head touched by complete strangers, let alone his ears turned inside-out and inspected.. not easy. Maybe.. (off the top of my head), a small bead of plastic or glass, coating fluorescent or phosphorescent material, implanted somewhere with thin skin. Bead glows under UV light and emits glow through skin. Dog (or cat) can be checked without any touching involved. I dunno. It's 2017 and given the technology we have, someone should have figured something better out.

I can't imagine they they don't feel a whole lot of hurt from that when they wake up. The pin clamp is the same sort as is used for doing greyhounds ears and many of the greyhounds I've rescued have been very wary of people touching their ears. My old guy used to GSoD just from soft touches. My vet could find nothing wrong at all, it was just fear of being hurt there again. I've done a few desexing tatts on anaesthetised dogs and even though I knew they were asleep and not feeling the pain, it was still stomach-turning. That crunching sound.. Personally, when I'm having greys desexed, I request no tattoo. Firstly, to save them the additional discomfort. Second, because they are chipped while under and chip records will contain information about their reproductive status and thirdly, because not all vets/nurses are mindful of existing ear brands and will go right over the top of them. Down here, greyhounds almost never end up in pounds though and because all greyhound rescues down here desex, if you take in any surrendered pet greyhound from another group, you'll already know that it doesn't need desexing. If I was rescuing the dime-a-dozen staffy mixes down here, yeah, I'd probably consider the desexing tatts.

Or they're wearing tiny goose down jacket vests so they blend in now. To be fair though, the patchouli scented variety is a slightly different creature. They congregate further down the street in the vegan/vegetarian/sustainable/Greenie sub-precinct of the cafe precinct and tend to drink mostly soy chai. They'll eat only raw green things that most people would consider weeds (dandelion salad) and will only eat it out of plates made from recycled used tissues but then will go home, stoke up their wood fire and help to fill the valley with a thick layer of wood smoke. On the topic of gentrification, yeah. The area I grew up in was quite poor. Mostly immigrants (Italians and Greeks, mostly) and it was considered quite a "bad" area. For us, it was a great place to live- everyone knew everyone, people felt safe to let their kids out to play, all the Italian/Greek food you could possibly want.. pretty good place to grow up. Now, it's cafes, interior design boutiques, micro brewers and "boutique" Airbnb accommodation. The streets are now filthy with litter and dog poo (because the latte sippers like to bring their schnoodles but never remember poo bags), tacky modern facades have been slapped over pretty little cottages, and possibly worst of all, the entire area feels much less safe. After living there 30+ years and never having any trouble, my mum has had two attempted break-ins in the last two years. Gentrification turned it from an affordable, safe, pleasant area into something not very people-friendly at all. I now live in another "bad" area and I'm glad to be back amongst the dirty working class. Streets are usually tidy, we know our neighbours and it's a quiet and pleasant place to live. We just have to watch out for any cafes.. >.>