Steve

I am dissapointed in this. Do you really agree with this? As long as the puppies they produce are healthy, are good specimens of their chosen breed (which is subjective to each individual), and they sell them to good homes, what business is it of ours? Can you say, "NUNYA". That is, the conditions that the mother lives in means nothing and is none of anyone's business? I find that abhorrant. I'm not a breeder, but I don't believe that what makes a "good specimen" is subjective to each individual. That is why we have breed standards, dog shows and dog sports - to measure the mark of each dog. The statement above plays to much to the "I think my dog is so pretty so I'll breed it" crowd. Where does it say the conditions the mother lives in mean nothing? Of course it means something.And no - me agreeing with the sentiments of the article dont point to any way shape or form of me condoning breeding or housing dogs in substandard conditions. Test it. Try and pick a name any name in any breed and tell me that when you say it out loud that someone wont bag them out and tell you why they are rotten. Pick a group any group of breeders and tell me that there is no one to act as critic and bang a drum against them. Everyone of them can tell you why they are better and why the others are not. Everyone is an expert and able to judge what someone else's motivations are or how they treat their dogs,whether they test for xyz or not based on whether or not they fit in with their grand view of what a breeder should do to get it right. The breeder may have been getting it right by their dogs and their puppy buyers for decades but that wont count for much.

last Year

I think its spot on.

Where's madwoofter. Ive been emailing and phoning for weeks and getting nowhere. Does anyone know if she is O.K.? Julie

commercial dog breeders Australian Association of Pet Dog Breeders There is also now the MDBA registry so registered could also mean MDBA registered

Gumtree confuses me also...I ended up finding 'spoodles' for sale saying they are a registered breeder with mother from championship lines???? They are - registered with AAPDB and both parents have purebred papers.

Breeders have 18 months to register a litter - nothing dodgy about it. the regs allow them to that and sometimes that suits them. Its simply a different method of operating. If I have someone who wants to show or who needs the papers for what ever reason asap then I put them through straight away but if Im waiting to see if one pans out and is good enough for main register/breeding Im likely to wait a while rather than put that on main or limited and have to change them over - I take my time. I usually let the new owner name them so if one is here for a bit longer I wait until they are all sold. You also have to be careful about what you think is going on. I know of breeders who register all puppies as they are required to do via the regs but they dont give the rego papers. So even though all puppies are registered all puppies are not sold with papers. Other breeders will sell a pup without rego papers and give a copy of the registered pedigree. Much of this came to attention when we launched our new registry.Some breeders contacted us and were concerned that we would allow their limited registered dogs to be placed on our main register and used for breeding and several said they sell with or without papers even though they are all registered and others said they only ever give copies of papers for limited registered dogs. Point is when you see a breeder advertising with or without papers you cant assume the papers dont exist or will not exist. It isnt necessarily evidence that they are not registering all pups. Also when you see a breeder breeding both purebred and cross bred dogs you cant assume they are using their registered dogs and proving they are is a very difficult task. If they are not using their purebred dogs to breed cross bred dogs they are not breaching the codes. One I complained about breeds both pure and cross bred and on investigation turned out she bred purebreds and he bred cross breds - or that was the story. Even if you can prove that one of her purebred dogs sired a litter of cross bred dogs you have to prove the dog didnt just slip one in without the registered owner allowing it deliberately.

They have lived with a cat . The owner has the cat with her but cant have the dogs yet.

O.K. Clearly Ive been naive but there's not a chance my dogs would stay there.

Sorry no PMs email [email protected]

I wouldnt have signed it either - I wouldnt havent left them there but it was a desperate situation and obviously lots and lots and lots of people do. Sometimes people cant be contacted in time to save a dog's life and the special circumstances in this case would have prevented that anyway. Should dogs in boarding kennels have hands on them everyday to check them for ticks if they are in a high tick risk area? Do peopel dropping of their pets into a kennel in a high risk tick area understand that they will not be handled every day to check they havent picked up a tick?

“The owner agrees to pay all costs and charges for special services and all veterinary costs for the pet during the time the pet is in care.” The dog did not have a pre existing hip condition – there is no disagreement about how the animal was injured which was during a swap over of pens by an attendant. The boarding kennel is the agent and has the bill made up in their name with balance falling due by the owner on pick up. The dog was in their care for approx 3 months and did not have ticks at time of arrival. The dogs were not boarded locally to the owners usual vet and the kennel's vet is used for all emergency and vet services.

Yes to all of the above but the case Im looking at has had to pay thousands of dollars for vetting caused by an injury to one dog's hip whilst it was in boarding and the other which was found unconscious due to tick paralysis whilst in boarding. You can hardly expect the owner should anticpate this extra expense to get them out of care when she returned to pick them up.How many extra thousands of dollars should an owner budget for to be safe and be able to take their dogs home while they pay off the balance? It may be good business but it sure as hell isnt in the best interests of the dogs.

Could you please explain why these two points are an issue please? Obviously because the demand is high for placements - so owners are at risk of over looking some of the things they would take into account if they had greater choices. When they find an opening they take it because its an opening not necessarily because its what they would like. Im not sure people who are signing off on contracts know that the costs they think they will incur when they leave their dogs in kennels can skyrocket with a whole bunch of extras so when they come to pick them up its a huge unexpected expense and if they dont pay in full that it can even lead to the dogs being put to sleep. It may be that people running a kennel are in business and have the right to collect fair payment but surely there are better management methods than holding someone's family pet indefinitely incurring more and more costs if they dont have enough to pay the whole account at pick up. Why not take a bond at drop off for example - if someone doesnt have the money they then cant leave the dog rather than have them get to the end and their animals be held to ransom. Im not letting people off the hook who sign these contracts altogether either but if you sign into a motel and then at the end of your stay you dont have the money to pay they dont make you stay indefinitely incurring more costs before they let you leave. If you dont pay up in 14 days they dont take you to be put down. Surely there has to be other ways of getting their money in the case where someone is unable to pay on the day.

I think so at least for a period of time. I send all of my puppies home with a free insurance policy which lasts for 6 weeks and I recommend that my puppy buyers take out the insurance at least for the first year - simply because its around about $130 a year and if anything goes wrong it costs a lot more money than that. Ive had puppy buyers who have come back over the years where their puppies [ in the first year] have died from ticks, death adders, broken neck from being hit with Dads gold club while he was practicing, got sick after pinching the christmas ham,run over, drowned in the swimming pool and died from eating snail bait. The first year is when its high risk for accidents, vaccine reactions, its the period when potentially long term health issues will first show up. Then you can reassess and decide whether you should take out another year or instead of paying money to the insurance company have a credit card or bank account set up which will cover it if anything goes wrong.

Thank you

its appalling isnt it? Ive been reading through the stuff that people have to sign off on when they leave their animals and wonder if anyone actually reads some of it before they leave their mates in their care. With some of them it makes you wonder how they fit in with the new Australia wide contract laws because it look to me to be pretty stacked in their favour. The business practices and ethics with some astound me. It seems though that its a roaring trade with some of them having over 300 hundred animals sometimes in their care and placements needing to be booked miles in advance with the most horrible conditions if you cant pay the full amount on time. I feel terribly sorry for those who have to find somewhere for their animals to stay and have few choices but also for those who leave them at some high profile kennels and are hoodwinked by publicity into assuming they are a good place to leave their dogs and cats. We have some legal people looking at some of these contracts and studying the legislation and mandatory codes but honestly I think its time we bought this out in the open and began working toward doing something to sort it out including banging some pretty big drums.

Right up front I have to say this is being instigated because we are dealing with a case that has me asking big big questions about how boarding kennels operate and what people expect as basic services when they place their dogs. What is the norm and what do you want from a kennel when you leave your dogs there. Personally I think its time we rattled the bucket a bit and took a really close look at what mandatory codes are in place and what needs to be addded to them in order to be sure that our animals are having basic duty of care and they are being looked after as we expect they will be. Sure Ive heard stories before about dogs which come home which have fly bite or skin infections, wounds etc but Im ashamed to admit I havent really taken that much notice. Ive never used a boarding kennel and never would so Ive walked around oblivious to what can and does happen. It never occured to me that someone would take $30 a day to look after a dog [ or cat] and not check it at least daily for injuries or illness past looking at it from a distance. If for example I own a boarding kennel in an area known to have paralysis tick should the owner have an expectation that their dog will be handled and checked at least daily for ticks? If they put a clause in to say if the animal dies from tick they are not liable does this mean I cant expect them to have some kind of management protocol to ensure my dog isnt running around with a tick and facing death, before it become unconscious and they happen to see it when they walk past the next day???? Do owners really place their animals in a kennel and understand that no one will check them up close and they run a high risk of the dog getting a tick and dropping dead or in a life threatening situation because the people the animal is left with dont see being vigilant for this as part of their duties ? Then who checks to see these places are doing what they should be doing as far as cleaning routines and housing, how are they checked, by whom and how often ? Is it something a pet owners takes in their stride if they leave their dog in a kennel for a couple of weeks and they come to pick it up and it has an infection caused by having to live on concrete sitting in its own urine? Do I have unrealistic expectations of what should be a duty of care.Talk to me about what happens and what you expect to happen when you leave your dog in a boarding kennel? One of the cases Pacers has at the moment has really tugged at my heart for the dogs and the owner and I really do think there are some major issues in the industry which need to be looked at and lobbied to change whats going on in some of them.

1.Toy Poodle born 30 May 2002 2. Bicon Frise born 13 Oct 2002 3. Shih Tzu x maltese born 24 April 2005 They are crate trained and are inside dogs but they have been living in a boarding kennel since November. They were transferred to a different boarding situation early February. The owner is happy for them to be in or out as long as they are safe.

How very sad but look at how much damage that does to rescue in general. Apart from the obvious - I hope they have liability insurance - its taken us decades to try to get people to see rescue dogs as a great way of bringing a new dog into their home. When you have rescue who cut corners and dont do what they have been promoted to do when placing dogs there is a much bigger picture and it doesnt just occur in that locality or even in that country. The story is distributed everywhere and a percentage of people who may have been considering taking on a rescue will be looking in other directions. It really does impact on all of those great rescue people who are going way over and beyond to get it right.

MDBA Pacers has a call for help from someone who has had a pretty hard time and is fighting deperately to keep her dogs. There are three of them all little - all desexed, microchipped, vaccinated and housetrained. All vet checked and healthy with the exception of one which needs occassional eye drops. They are well socialised get on with other dogs, kids and overall they are pretty bombproof.They are accustomed to travelling in a well behaved manner on public transport. The owner has a small window until around the second week of March to find a place for them to stay for approx 12 weeks while she looks for solutions[ with our help] for the spot she is in. She understands that they may not all be able to go to the same place and she is O.K. about them being separated or even transported anywhere in the country to foster homes in order to have them safe rather than have to surrender them. Pacers will cover all expenses and our foster carers are covered by our insurances. So ideally we would like to find someone close to Sydney who can take 3 little dogs for 12 weeks but we understand that may not be possible so anyone who thinks they may be able to put their hand up to help this lady and her dogs it would be very much appreciated . www.mdbapacers.org.au Email Phone 0269276707.

Take a year off - dont renew your membership for a year - you have 5 years to renew and 18 months to register your puppies. If everyone just waited a year or two to catch up that would reduced their income - money talks. Or transfer from your state to another - all you need is an address over the border. Im sure the NT KC could use your membership money for a year or two - or longer. Vote with your feet and your wallet. But do it as a protest against what they have done not because there are rotten breeders in the new group.

I also think they are a bit slow to pick up that the reason breeders will walk away is because its become so controlling and over regulated at every level WHICH IS NOT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE DOGS . It has nothing to do with whether we can comply or even that we want to do it all and get it all right - its about taking away our passion for learning and making educated decisions in our own back yards based on what we know and what we are working with. it about taking away the feelings we got from doing what we did . we are spoken of as if we are pond scum and animal abusers and instead of our CC saying bugger off we only have great members and if they muck it up we will take action against them - they sniveled and agreed with them. What is in the best interests of the dog and our breeds into the future? This should be the only question on the table.But when we go after answers we had better start doing our own research,taking advantage of our own knowledge and experience and not just follow on like sheep and dance to an animal rights drum. Why on earth would we do what people who have never bred a dog let alone a purebred dog tell us is what we need to do? All of a sudden nothing counts, our experience our knowledge our reputations our track records are degraded. Time for them to man up.

Yes I hear you but while ever they are there they have been judged to be more ethical and until such time as they are exposed and or expelled they are promoted and supported more than anyone who is not an accredited breeder. Is that right or fair, should they have ever done what they have done? I think the fact that they have introduced a system which places one member over another is disgraceful and it denigrates every registered purebred breeder. Will this eventually help or hinder ? I believe that over time it will hinder the PR of purebreds and purebred breeders. I think they played right into animal rights hands. Animal rights have gone like mad to put showing and show breeders down. Pedigreed dogs exposed and the fallout spoke against show people because they said we put these things over temperament and health, that the selection for the show ring is cruelty and has destroyed our breeds, that we need outside interference to be sure we get it right - so what do the CC do - tell them they are right that they have breeders in their ranks which are rotten so they need to put extra bits in to discriminate the good from the bad - BUT - every step of the way in almost every sentence in that new code is a bigger push toward the very thing they have been getting belted for - an emphasis and bias toward showing before anything else. 100 percent I think they have really done the wrong thing. I understand someone refusing to join based on the fact that they object to what has been done and the creation of a sub class versus a superior class of membership. None of us paid our membership dues to be told that this would put us in the pit and see us treated as second class or worse especially if we feel that one or more of those being promoted and elevated should be in the pit lower than us. But its time to stop saying you wont join because there are rotten ones there because it hurts us more. I understand the frustration of working your heart out for decades to get it right and then be treated as if you didn't count and whether you choose to join or not its your choice but this particular reason which is being spoken of here is in my opinion not the answer.

I did once but have now replied again. All is good Im just sad that you are unwell and hope you get better soon. Ill have a couple of drinks for you over the week end. better sort out who will receive your awards if you win. Julie