Maddy

Back when we had the last mousie invasion, the greyhounds certainly tried to get mice.

It was a bit embarassing to watch- mousie wanders along the garage wall towards some cupboards, several greyhounds notice and close in for the kill.. several greyhounds collide in a pile of stupid at the wall, mousie squeezes in under the cupboard door and lives to tell his mousie grandchildren about the time he survived a pack of vicious greyhounds

In an open space I suppose they might be able to catch a mouse (or more likely a rat) but inside the house or in the yard.. not a chance.

Our female greyhound does get the occasional starling when they start getting really bold but from watching Sally, there doesn't seem to be much skill involved, it's basically-

Step 1- Find a comfy spot to nap on the lawn

Step 2- Ignore the birds that land on the fence or further away from her on the lawn

Step 3- Wait until a bird is bold enough to hop right past her nose

Step 4- Grab bird, hide body in someone's gumboot at the back door

Recently we had 2 blue greyhounds adopted - both had enquiries about them within the first 24 hours of being put on our website as available. No so the black dogs who often wait months for a home.

I was recently talking to a greyhound breeder & mentioned how popular the blue greyhounds were for adoption. She said it's just the opposite with racing as everyone wants to buy black pups because the think they'll be faster. Very few want blue greyhounds because they are believed to be slower. I'm at a loss to understand how colour can determine a good race dog. Surely it's breeding that matters?

for all the black greyhounds being breed that will never find a pet home.

I was told the same thing by a trainer.

But.. I can see where it starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy-

The more black dogs that run in a race, the more likely it is that a black dog will win. Fewer blue dogs means statistically, fewer blue dogs win. And with so many black dogs now, a black dog is always bound to do well, proving their superstition correct

Pretty sure that every council in Vic has a 2 dog limit, without a permit.

Same for every Tasmanian council area that I know of.

Two pet dogs over the age of six months or four working dogs over the age of six months.

Central Highlands Council don't have a limit at the moment, but I believe it will be coming in over the next few months. From what I understand, the 2 dog limit is state legislation in Tasmania, which is why Central Highlands are being forced to bring it in, even though they would prefer not to have the limit (according to comments made by the Mayor and councillors at a community meeting last September which we attended).

When we lived in the Rural City of Wangaratta council area in Victoria, we had 5 dogs with no permit required and no limit that we were aware of - but we were zoned rural and on acerage.

We actually had someone wanting to surrender a greyhound to us because they had three dogs and had recieved a warning from the council. Understandable if it was somewhere reasonably built-up (like Launceston or surrounding suburbs) but this was Northern Midlands council area- a few small towns and the rest is very much rural :D

I was only talking about Central Highlands Council as not (yet) having the two dog limit, not Northern Midlands :D As I said, I believe it's state legislation in Tasmania to have a 2 dog limit, and I think the only one who isn't yet enforcing this is Central Highlands - but they will be soon.

My other comment, about being on rural acerage, was in reference to Victoria

Erm, yeah, I got that.

My comment was pointing out that even in rural areas of Tasmania (where you wouldn't think a permit would be necessary) dog numbers are not only monitored but also enforced.

Pretty sure that every council in Vic has a 2 dog limit, without a permit.

Same for every Tasmanian council area that I know of.

Two pet dogs over the age of six months or four working dogs over the age of six months.

Central Highlands Council don't have a limit at the moment, but I believe it will be coming in over the next few months. From what I understand, the 2 dog limit is state legislation in Tasmania, which is why Central Highlands are being forced to bring it in, even though they would prefer not to have the limit (according to comments made by the Mayor and councillors at a community meeting last September which we attended).

When we lived in the Rural City of Wangaratta council area in Victoria, we had 5 dogs with no permit required and no limit that we were aware of - but we were zoned rural and on acerage.

We actually had someone wanting to surrender a greyhound to us because they had three dogs and had recieved a warning from the council. Understandable if it was somewhere reasonably built-up (like Launceston or surrounding suburbs) but this was Northern Midlands council area- a few small towns and the rest is very much rural :D

Pretty sure that every council in Vic has a 2 dog limit, without a permit.

Same for every Tasmanian council area that I know of.

Two pet dogs over the age of six months or four working dogs over the age of six months.

Back when I first got Kiff, it was just a bag behind the back door. Now, our garage is used almost entirely just for dog stuff

To be fair though.. they do need the spare collars and leashes and stretch vests and pajamas and coats and muzzles and backpacks/treatbags and toys and assorted grooming/training/exercising crap.

It'd look like far less if I had small dogs so I try not to feel too guilty about all the dog clutter

Ha. This is so true. My friends brother walked in on us sharing a cuppa and noticed my black lab under my chair. He nearly jumped out of his skin. Apparently she had evil eyes....though I dont know how he could see her eyes from the other side of the kitchen.

I recon movies have a part to play in this too. Threatening dogs are always dark and the hero dogs are usually paler. Probably a bit like the 'knight in shining armour' and dark clothed villian idea.

Personally I like the shine on a black coat.

what I'd like to note is that in 'I Am Legend' with Will Smith - the hero dog is a GSD!! :p ;) and he was dark but tri coloured!

I refuse to watch i am legend for the fact they kill him

Me too!

I havent watched it since - I wish someone had bloody told me they kill the dog because I didnt know when I first saw it and was absolutely BAWLING when I saw it. And I loved the movie so its a shame I probably wont watch it again. lol

oh and how to you add pictures from photobucket? I want you guys to see my dogs

Upload the picture to photobucket, then get the url of the photo (there's a little box that pops up when you mouse over each picture, url is.. the second one down, from memory). Then, back on Dol, click on the "add image" button in the post menu (directly to the right of the hyperlink button) and paste the url into the dialogue box that pops up.

Alternatively, you can just type in the tags yourself around the url (img)http://imageURL.com(/img) replacing the ( with [

Having been rescuing dogs for around 6 years now, I have found that the dogs that have taken the longest to rehome (12 months plus) were all large adult male brindles. I have had a few black fosters, and none of them were long-termers.

We never had trouble rehoming the brindles, lots of people commented they look like skinny tigers so I guess it was the perception they were "exotic" that made them so easy to rehome.

Someone really needs to start a rumour that black greyhounds are a rare dog

Hardy's Angel, i've seen the black girl you have atm, and I think she's GORGEOUS! But then, i'm a Grey lover/owner and I love black dogs.

I don't have any colour preference when it comes to dogs, but if I could pick any colour, i'd go black as it just looks cool

Black also goes well with most other colours so buying nice coats and jammies for them is so much easier :p

Grace is an absolute sweetheart of a dog but people cross the street to avoid us, even though she's fairly small for a grey and has a very "nice" face. It's kind of funny because everyone wants to pat Kiff (the grumpy, old man dog who prefers to be left alone) while Grace is an attention-whore and she gets ignored or avoided.

Of course, jammies do make a fair bit of difference- whack some pink pajamas on a dog and it'd have to be chewing on someone's leg before people would reconsider coming over to pat it.

Lots of people say black dogs are harder to rehome but I've known quite a few that have flown out the door & they look soo shiny!

My opinion is based on what we experience with greyhounds- and in a lot of cases, adopters specify a dog of a particular colour (although a few were talked around to a black). We had a lovely black girl here for over twelve months but other "coloured" dogs were rehomed before her, despite her having a better temperament and being suitable for a far wider range of homes

Some people do prefer black but those people seem to be very much in the minority, unfortunately.

Edited for typo

There are people that believe black dogs are mean-tempered, though personally I have never ever seen any evidence that the colour makes a difference.

In my experience, the black female greyhounds are almost always total airheads. Friendly, outgoing and gorgeous girls but not a brain cell to spare between them

Why can't you walk him with stitches? Not long walks, but a walk around the block or something?

My vet told me I should. As long as I don't get the stitches wet and the walk isn't too hard, it's ok to walk them.

We've never been told by our vet not to walk them while they still had stitches in.

The usual 24 hours of quiet after the operation and then business as usual (provided the stitches don't get wet).

I could understand perhaps taking it a little easier for a female dog (as the desexing is a bit more involved) but almost every male we've desexed has come out of the surgery very bright and with no sign of discomfort. The first thing they usually want to do when they get back here is run around like idiots because they've spent the day in a small cage at the vet

We were only commenting last night about how great Lilly looks at the moment, she is glossy and shiny - alas I suck at taking photos of her :D

We've been working on getting our current foster a bit more photogenic but it's hard when the little grot assumes that time in the front yard (which is a better place for taking photos, much more light and space to move) means that she should roll in the leaves, run around like a nutter and get herself as filthy as possible.

http://greyhoundhaven.webs.com/apps/blog/e...w/4815112-grace That's the before and after shots for her- although not the best. Grace also happens to be a bit of a porker so the nicely defined hound lines are missing, presumed dead, under a layer of blubber

I just don't know why people have what Cesar called 'Black Dog Syndrome'???

It's not exactly a new or unknown problem, there are actually some reacue groups that rehome just the blacks. http://www.blackpearldogs.com/

Blacks make up a substantial proportion of greyhounds (I can't remember the exact percentage but it's over 60%) and the blacks have always been the hardest for us to rehome.

I actually have a small pile of applications on my desk right now, all of them set aside because they wanted "unusual" or "pretty" or "rare" coloured dogs (sadly, those are some of the actual words used in the applications)- and the current foster girl is just black.

The colours people prefer in greyhounds seem to be fawn and blue, in particular, parti colour fawn or blues. We've actually only ever had two parti dogs, one of those was white with black (although she was cat-safe so rehomed very quickly) and the other was white and fawn (the greyhound on the right in my signature) but she failed small dog testing twice and was not suitable for rehoming.

It's really quite disappointing that people would still prefer looks over temperament, our current foster is a lovely girl (very intelligent, gets along beautifully with other dogs and she's very people-oriented) but as soon as you tell people what colour she is, the interest in her disappears completely.

I actually think black is the prettiest colour on greyhounds... how sad:(

A black greyhound with a decent coat (as opposed to the fluffy brownish colour they often are when surrendered) usually actually looks a lot nicer than most of the other colours. A shiny black coat allows you to see the muscles beneath it really well and it looks stunning if you can get the lighting right.

This is a picture of a foster boy we had-

Getting the coat glossy takes a little bit of work (we use a Furminator to strip out the brown fluff) but it makes a huge difference.

Edited to add..

The hound in the photo above hadn't been groomed for the picture, he probably could've looked a bit glossier with a few minutes of grooming.

I doubt it has anything to do with having been desexed.

Our dogs behave the same way when we have possums around (or when the dogs over the back fence start the barking) so we simply fenced off the places they seemed to bark more at and that fixed the problem entirely.

Possums are pretty territorial and they'll move into an uninhabited territory very quickly. We cage-trapped and removed one possum from our yard and within a few days, there was a new possum moved in. They're also much harder to spot than cats so often you'll never actually see them around.

I just don't know why people have what Cesar called 'Black Dog Syndrome'???

It's not exactly a new or unknown problem, there are actually some reacue groups that rehome just the blacks. http://www.blackpearldogs.com/

Blacks make up a substantial proportion of greyhounds (I can't remember the exact percentage but it's over 60%) and the blacks have always been the hardest for us to rehome.

I actually have a small pile of applications on my desk right now, all of them set aside because they wanted "unusual" or "pretty" or "rare" coloured dogs (sadly, those are some of the actual words used in the applications)- and the current foster girl is just black.

The colours people prefer in greyhounds seem to be fawn and blue, in particular, parti colour fawn or blues. We've actually only ever had two parti dogs, one of those was white with black (although she was cat-safe so rehomed very quickly) and the other was white and fawn (the greyhound on the right in my signature) but she failed small dog testing twice and was not suitable for rehoming.

It's really quite disappointing that people would still prefer looks over temperament, our current foster is a lovely girl (very intelligent, gets along beautifully with other dogs and she's very people-oriented) but as soon as you tell people what colour she is, the interest in her disappears completely.

There was a pet shop down here selling chi x staffy pups, fugliest dogs I have ever seen.

Edit..

Now that I think about it.. poodle x labs are probably the ugliest mix I can think of. I've yet to see one that didn't look really ugly.

Do you mean me?!

I most certainly did. You're really on a troll today aren't you?

Fixed.

Back on topic.. almost any breed of dog can exhibit this sort of pack behaviour in the right (or wrong) circumstances. I've seen it in greyhounds (although never directed towards humans, always other dogs) and when they get going, it's very difficult to stop.

In this case, realistically, there'd have been nothing the man in the car could've done to help her (without risking his own life). But even knowing that, I doubt he'll be sleeping well for quite some time, the poor thing.

Edited for typo

There has been research done in the US (quite recently) that pointed to exactly the opposite conclusion of the researchers you refer to- they found no link between violence and video games.

The exact opposite effect would be a finding that violent video games produce pro-social and benevolent behaviours.

I'm pleased you brought that up. The study found gaming to be a very social activity and gives children a safe outlet to express violence.

That aside, team-based PvP requires a player to learn how to function as part of a group. You have to learn how to cooperate and communicate effectively. The "steroeptypical" angry gamer who just runs around by themselves, PKing everything in sight and then throwing his keyboard around before going outside to kick puppies is a creature thought up by the same people who want to ban violent video games. I've been a gamer for almost 20 years and have yet to come across the sort of violent, evil children we're constantly being warned about. Gamers are, in my experience, well-adjusted, normal people who've suffered the stigma of being gamers owing to poorly conducted research and ignorant stereotyping (usually from people who've never picked up a controller in their lives).

I PvP on an NwN server that uses high-end gear and allows all classes, the result is a highly competitive play environment that requires very tight teamwork and the ability to very quickly communicate an idea or strategy. The ability to function as part of a group (even if your role isn't the most fun) is, in my opinion, a valuable social skill to have.

So, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one, my own experience (and results of unbiased studies) forms the basis of my opinion and that isn't going to change based on anything said here.

http://www.grandtheftchildhood.com/GTC/Research_Papers.html Some papers you might find interesting.

Edited to add..

http://www.gamecouch.com/2008/02/interview...heft-childhood/ Interview with one of the authors

Suggesting that violent games or games that involve/encourage criminal behaviour are a contributing factor is ignoring everything we know about the causes of violent crime.

Errmm, actually that's not true, and it's really not that simple. Some researchers regard the evidence that violent video games cause aggression as being conclusive, what implications that has are a little harder to determine.

I really don't think we can pin all violent crime in Australia on bad parenting. Just because you had good parents, played violent video games and didn't end up committing violent crime doesn't really tell us anything about it at all.

"Some researchers believe" is not conclusive evidence. Some researchers believed vaccinations cause autism when it was simply a case of vaccines being administered at roughly the same age the illness is generally diagnosed. There has been research done in the US (quite recently) that pointed to exactly the opposite conclusion of the researchers you refer to- they found no link between violence and video games.

Suggesting that video games contrribute to violent crime is, in my opinion, ignoring the known contributing factors (poverty, drug use/abuse in the home, etc) in favour of a "factor" that some people find distasteful (and something that can more easily be banned than a poor home environment).

Edited to add..

I have to go out for a while but when I get back, I'll find you the names of the researchers and a link to their study. Their study (unlike many others relating to video games) was entirely independant and they were not seeking to confirm a belief they already held (unlike studies where the purpose of the study was to prove video games are bad for children).

I'm can just imagine kids playing this game, then getting involved in dog fighting because it is available and they will find social groups that encourage it. You don't have to look too hard either.

I'm a big fan of horror/thriller genre - hasnt turned me into a serial killer and there are quite a few members on here who are the same. What's to say an App about dog fighting is going to turn someone into a crim?

Different social groups. No-one would support or facilitate your career change. No-one would be a willing participant.

It would be very difficult to prove a causal link, but we do know there are correlations.

A person who is more inclined toward criminal activity is also more likely to have difficulty with empathy (because a lack of empathy is required to victimise another person/animal) so criminal activity that involves harming other people or animals (dog fighting, prostitution, etc) obviously becomes more likely. Violent video games do not make violent people.

Suggesting that violent games or games that involve/encourage criminal behaviour are a contributing factor is ignoring everything we know about the causes of violent crime.

What is the difference between me and someone who does actually peddle drugs, slap up goblins or jack cars? I learned that certain behaviours were unacceptable through consistant parenting. Additionally, I had the good fortune of being born in a country with a decent social security system so I'd never have motivation to commit crime.

The fact that crime is still happening here means you could say that it's one of two things- influence of media or influence of parents. Children learn by watching everything that happens around them, what they see at home is their reality, not Grand Theft Auto.

Just make sure you bury the corpse deep, HA. I read in Chopper Read's autobio that the gases make them rise.

Even in heavy soil? Well, the things you learn on Dol. Dol is teaching me how to dispose of bodies, oh noez!

I'm a big fan of horror/thriller genre - hasnt turned me into a serial killer and there are quite a few members on here who are the same.

Or so you assume.

Anyways, must be off- got a body to bury out in the yard. I watched the new Saw movie last night and thought I'd have a go at knocking up my own murder trap.

Seriously though.. people need to give their kids some credit. It's not video games or violent movies or dog fighting apps that make little monsters, it's usually the parents. If we could just figure out how to ban them...

Edited to add..

Here's a good example- When I was younger, I loved playing Drug Wars (a sim game where you traffic illegal drugs). I'm not out on the streets peddling pills to children or managing a crack house. As a child, my parents taught me that certain drugs were illegal for good reasons. Same goes for games that involved killing or hurting people (of which there are plenty) and games that contain other socially unacceptable goals (like taking over the world).

It is a parent's job to teach children what is acceptable behaviour and what isn't. Sanitising gaming or movies is an inappropriate response that simply encourages parents to allow children to explore the world without the guidance they need.

Also 3 shots....sorry but it got hit the first time anything after that was overkill the dog wasn't going to be coming back for more after the first hit. Disgusting.

Just to clarify here.. are you suggesting the officer should only have shot once, even if that meant leaving the animal seriously wounded?

I thought the dog was wounded and not killed regardless? But then again, it could well have died after the footage stopped and that wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah I thought maybe Hardy was asking whether I thought he shouldn't have shot the dog a 2nd time to "put it out of its misery" but it doesn't sound like the poor thing dies after the 2nd shot just was even more hurt...

but wasn't sure if she meant this or if I thought the officer should have shot at all.

Obviously shooting isn't the ideal way to resolve a situation like that but given the officer shot once (and, by the sound of it, wounded the dog), the next question has to be "What do you do with an animal possibly severly wounded by gunshot?"

Personally, I doubt that the additional shots were fired with the intention of getting the dog to back off. In similar videos I've seen, it's been one shot to drop the dog/whatever to allow the officer to approach and then a second shot to kill the animal. Likely, his intention was to destroy the dog to allow safe access to the beagle. It's hard to say as the video cuts out there but I'd be guessing the second dog met the same fate.

Also 3 shots....sorry but it got hit the first time anything after that was overkill the dog wasn't going to be coming back for more after the first hit. Disgusting.

Just to clarify here.. are you suggesting the officer should only have shot once, even if that meant leaving the animal seriously wounded?

I'd assume it'd be the acetylcysteine in the product as it's a Schedule 4 drug in Australia (prescription only).

Edited to clarify-

acetylcysteine - N-acetyl cysteine

Edited again to add..

(i) Acetylcysteine - consideration of scheduling

Outcome – The Committee considered a Schedule 2 classification was appropriate for oral

preparations.

Schedule 4 – Amendment

ACETYLCYSTEINE – amend entry to read:

ACETYLCYSTEINE except when included in Schedule 2.

Schedule 2 - New entry

ACETYLCYSTEINE in preparations for oral use.

But even with that change, still seems quite likely to me that AQIS would pull it up.