Steve

Ive got 16 grandkids coming and going ,a never ending parade of teenage boys and more recently lots more teenage girls and 4 employees - the gloves are off though for the meter reader and the service guys for the septic tanks. As long as I greet you and welcome you in all is well - bit scary though if you try to sneak in. the one which lives with the elderly lady has worked out if she puts her hand up to open the door it stands back and lets them in and lies in the room but if the person on the other side of the door attempts to put their hand on that door handle all hell breaks loose. Its about what is normal.

O.K But its still about what they see as normal and what they are accustomed to.You cant have a dog which isn't exposed to visitors very often and expect it to not be a bit iffy about visitors just as you cant expect a dog that isnt exposed to being handled by strangers off property with a leash on to accept it as a matter of course either.

Well Tralee with all due respect I think you are way off course. 22 years ago when I first started out with the breed I heard all manner of stories about them and I was determined to test them in a multitude of situations before I ever went anywhere near breeding one. For anyone to tell me they are not good with children, not good as a domestic pet etc is incredible and I could take up pages and pages of examples to demonstrate why I believe you are very much mistaken in your judgement.

This is a good read. http://www.houseabruzzo.com/abruzzo-articles/abruzzo-sheep-universe.asp

Tralee surely Im misunderstanding you - how can you say that a Maremma cant be a domestic pet ?

If they dont know who their master is and they dont know what they are guarding and where their boundary is -they will guard the whole shire .Its why when they go to new homes they need to be bonded with that situation and know their boundaries.- Which by the way is far more important than leash training or anything else you ordinarily do with another breed when you bring it home.

Look the whole point is that you can take a well bred Maremma and it can be a companion or a worker or both.Its about what they are exposed to and what they consider normal. Several of the dogs Ive bred are in situations where the people who own them only see them every couple of weeks and they are not dogs gone wild and they still know and respect the owners. Others out of the same litter are companions and live with a family. Some are with Autistic children, some are with elderly people and some are champions. If they are going to work all week and come out of the paddock to attend shows then it simply needs to be seen as normal for them. If strangers are going to approach them whilst they are on lead they should be able to cope with that without any stress. Im not sure how some of mine would react to that test in the video because they have never experienced it but Im confident that if they had been they would do what is required of them. I don't see the need for me to put the work into a dog which is with sheep all of its life from 6 weeks to 18 years of age to test it that way and expose them to when its not something its ever going to need to do I dont see that as something that's necessary for me to test the temperament by . I know I can bring a bitch out of the paddock who has lived her whole life outside and put her in my family room for her to whelp and I cant determine any difference form her and the bitch that has lived in the house all of her life. For me that test isn't testing the temperament its testing the training and what the dog is accustomed to. The temperament is how they react and cope and move under pressure when they are turned on or guarding - that video shows the skill of the trainer and how well they have been exposed to those circumstances and it isnt something Im interested in to determine whether its worthy of being bred.

I would also like to add my working Maremma rarely get what I would call intelligent company - if you define that by human company. They are checked every day, fed every day and have human hands on them for a few minutes every day but they live with and stay with their sheep 24 hours a day . The sheep certainly are not "bought in" and the dogs do not come back to the house to sleep.The dogs get on with everything on this property that I consider and treat as normal including my other dogs.When they do come into the house yard which is every couple of months they have no interest in behaving like my pet Maremma does and they dont seek out my company they still stay in the yard with the sheep even though they could come and sit with the humans if they wanted to. If I bring them in without the sheep they are no different to my pet Maremma. They also work completely differently if there is more than one in a paddock and that has nothing to do with their gender .

In the 'Maremma goes feral' situation the dogs are left for six months at a time. Your friends obviously have a working relationship with their dogs and I would expect that to be the minimum criteria for keeping Maremmas. I know a tea tree farmer who started with alpaccas to protect his weed eaters (sheep) but when the wild dogs came down they wouldn't move from the opposite end of the paddocks. They only reacted if approached directly. Absolutely useless. Interesting point about the other dogs. The Italians have used the Maremma for guarding together with another breed for herding. Look - thats just not true .Maremma left for 6 months shouldnt "go feral" and not still allow their humans to do everything they want. You might find one person somewhere who farms animals that doesnt check on them for 6 months but that's hard to believe.Most would check on them at least every couple of weeks and in those situation they always have other Maremma with them.

We had one case where an owner was blind and disabled as a result he wasnt eligible for a guide dog so he trained his own. He needed someone with eyes to go with him to the shops for a while to act as his eyes so he could know what the reactions of the dog were so Pacers helped find someone. In fact it was a dog Tapua bred.

Yes - there has been several instances over the past months where small hobby breeders have been made to comply with directions given to them to erect kennels and have them fitted with concrete flooring and there are new laws on the table which may not ever eventuate but it has bought the issue into focus. If they pass it means all people who ever want to have a litter of puppies have to pass inspection of their premises first. Laws and codes dont discriminate and small breeders have to comply with the same codes and regs as any large scale breeder. To date these conditions have been set as if we are housing dogs in a boarding kennel or shelter where they only stay temporarily but breeders dont have the same set of issues to deal with and they don't have the same risk factors re disease management etc. either.

But this is a judgement based on assumption. I've seen people who know they are dying get the timing wrong and they get to a point where it happens too fast or faster than expected or its a quick deterioration which doesn't allow them to follow through with their plans themselves.

As I said.... I'm realistic & would be in my own case. And within the highly specific scenario I've set out. Yes I get it - which way to go - do the right thing by the person or the right thing by the dog ? Straight out ethics 101 and what you think you would do can change in a heart beat anyway when it comes to real life rather than someone else's dilemma.

Yes, BFAS is impressive from I've read on that website. It's a shame to see such a sensible rescue making an anti-AKC rant. This opposition between rescue & the p/b world is so unnnecessary. Dunno - apparently there are some issues with the AKC . In the states the big puppy farmers are mostly AKC breeders.

I've already said the son was in a hard situation at a stressful time. And he made his decision. I have no quibble with someone making an ethical decision that might be different from mine. Bring on the ethics classes, I say. I don't either but Id like to think if I have a death bed wish that the person I'm asking has the same base ethics that I do and they aren't just saying what they think I want to hear so if they say no I can try someone else.

Yep.

Basic human nature means that some people do things which they promised not to do if they think no one is watching or will catch them at it - especially when there is no accountability. The poor son is probably very sorry that he agreed to do this for his Mum but watching someone die and agreeing to do as they are begging you to do is pretty bloody powerful and its very difficult to deny them. Simply saying yes shows instant relief for them and they go to God with out the fear and worry. When I agreed to my friend's request I saw the degree of instant relief that washed over her and I've never felt bad about making her feel better and letting her go without that concern on her shoulders. Now once you have made the promise you get choices some see things differently but you cant judge another person who did what they did in the belief they did the right thing - which ever way they go. For me if I make a promise I keep it - simple.

You miss the point - as a consequence this has to be about those who breed commercially or who "farm" but many breeders who are not farmers who simply want to breed dogs. This isn't about puppy farmers it about how dogs used for breeding - any dogs in any numbers are expected to be housed via regs and codes and laws. Lets try it this way. lets say a breeder has say 10 medium breed dogs and she has had this many for a long time and breeds them . One day the RSPCA and council turn up and tell her she has to have kennels - Is there a way she can do this without it costing a heap and laying down concrete etc. lets say Im a breeder who wants to comply with potential new laws which are on the table in order to be able to qualify for a licence to breed. Is the only answer lots of money and kennels which I dont believe I need because I dont have "too many" Ive no need to clarify Im talking about farming because Im not. The fact that farmers have to keep their dogs this way however is part of it as at law /codes etc there is no distinction between them and us. Im talking about any housing which is required to kennel dogs which traditionally isnt in my opinion that good that we dont need to brain storm a bit and see if we can come up with something different.

In my case the promise could have been asked of others but my friend knew me to be someone who keeps promises .When she was begging she told me she couldnt trust this with anyone else because she knew this about me. When she had died if I had breached her trust I would have felt I made that promise to her under false pretenses and cheated her out of perhaps finding someone else who who would have. It would take me all night to go through what bought me to knowing I had no choice if I wanted peace. My promise had nothing to do with dogs but it was something that I would never ever have considered doing if not for that promise and bad enough that Ive never shared it with anyone alive. Hopefully no one reading this will ever be in a place of pain and sadness and fear and misery as they feel their lives slipping away and until you live it and probably even if you do live it because we are all different we cant understand why one person wants one thing over an other as a dying wish. She asked for it her son gave it to her even after she didn't know anymore what he was doing - I get it.

yes thats how I would have felt if Id said yes and not kept my promise.

I'lll guarantee they would not be able to tick the boxes in the criteria that I'd set out, for how companion dogs need to be kept, bred & raised. And the items would not be my opinion ... they'd be based on evidence from studies. Ill send you a link to look at

Yep agreed but this week Ive spoken with a couple of large scale commercial breeders - one of the biggest in the country breeding purebred as well as cross bred dogs and is telling me that given the chance they could also tick all the boxes.She is in Victoria and is fully licensed and inspected and has little choices if she wants to keep as many dogs as she does In her case why does she have too many to keep as pets - because she breeds dogs solely for money Im not saying I believe her but it does make you think and thats a lot of dogs not getting any real quality of life and all the humans who observe it knowing it but still passing it because it fits the legal requirements is a major concern.

I was in a situation where I was staying with someone as they were preparing to die with a terminal disease. They asked me to do something and I said I didnt think I could do it as they got closer to the end it became a major deal for them and then they cried and begged for me to promise to do something - and in order to help them go in peace I promised that I would. Sort of had the idea in my mind at the time Id say what ever she wanted to hear to just let her go in peace but I wouldnt do it. After she had died I then had a choice - say nothing ,do nothing as if I hadnt promised or fulfill my promise. Ethically I chose to keep my promise even though no one other than this person and I ever knew there had been a promise. No one other than I know I did do what I promised to do either. I got all caught up in stuff as I was working through it - thoughts about God and life after death and whether she could see me not doing what I promised etc. In all honesty I don't think I could have ever lived my own life in peace if I hadn't of done what id promised to do. Maybe just maybe this is how the son felt. If he promised his Mum then I get that it was more important to him to keep his word to her over what he personally may have felt was best for the dog.