WoofnHoof

Let's hope she controls and contains her dog from now on. Shite some dog owners make me cranky. I don't give a damn how small and old the dog is. It can still bite. Not only that, some people really are genuinely scared of dogs even little dogs, and many children can become terrified of dogs without ever having been bitten, it doesn't have to bite to scare someone and people need to respect that.

For some reason I had current affair on the other night and saw the story, the owner is playing everyone for a fool the dog should have been contained, since they kept going on about how old and feeble the dog is it should have been extremely easy to contain.

Since a comprehensive risk assessment cannot be made without far more information than we currently have then yes I do have a problem with putting pets down in the interests of public safety since the relative risk to public safety at this point is largely unquantified.

I do think in the case of pets and horses the owners should have a say in how much risk they are prepared to accept. For example on my property I have four horses, three dogs and me, I can restrict who comes onto my property and I can add a buffer fence to the one fence here that borders a public street so realistically the only person placed at risk from my animals being kept alive is me, so I believe I should be able to have some input in the decision. I do believe that there are probably more hendra-recovered animals (particularly horses) around than first thought and so I think this is an issue that needs serious consideration because I think people will find in the future that horses (and maybe dogs) will need to be certified hendra-free in order to compete or travel, maybe even to be registered.

I didn't really put any thought into the breeds I've got now my parents bought me a chi when I was a kid so I was already attached to them when I saw my little boy in the pet shop so came home with him. A few years later same pet shop red husky caught my eye so I took him home too. Then I was looking for a little dog for my parents and saw Lulu on the rescue pages here she is a Swedish vallhund and appealed to us because she looked so much like a lovely bitsa we had for many years. She is now with me for a while as my mum has trouble keeping up with things after dad passed away last year and so I am looking for a very special home for her I am very keen on white shepherds and would love to have one of those next, while I love huskies, chis and SVs I think I will try the WS as they really appeal to me

I think the testing of other animals on affected properties is only a pretty recent development.

Ulitmately we don't really know how long it has been circulating in any of the species populations so it's very hard to then acertain the risks, for all anyone knows we have all been at risk for years just either not been unlucky enough to have caught it or caught it and got over it or it may not have had the capacity to jump to humans until recently. Lots and lots of unanswered questions that's for sure, I don't really see a lot of answers ahead either as if it's possible for owners to refuse testing then more and more owners will be choosing to do so rather than risk losing their animals.

Sounds like an interesting seminar ES! I'm thinking about going to the one up here tomorrow night but if I'm going to be surrounded by a bunch of screaming banshees maybe I'll just stay at home

Rottnbullies as far as I'm aware they do not believe that dogs can catch it directly from bats. I *think* (I'm not 100% sure I need to look into it a bit more) that the horse is the intermediate host and the virus changes within that host which then allows it to jump to other species, humans included. This is as I understand it as the information available suggests that the people who have caught it have caught it from horses not bats. If you are concerned maybe fence off any fruit or flowering trees you have, that is what horse owners are being advised to do to minimise the risks.

It's not because they are 'cute' it's because they are native animals and are vital to many ecosystems, they are also highly mobile and migratory so culling is not simple or effective in this case.

I think that we need to find out exactly how widespread this virus is among our animals but until they review the policy regarding euthing recovered animals very few people are going to volunteer healthy animals for testing. If we knew how widespread the disease is and the incidences and frequency of relapse we could better evaluate the risk but as it stands we are going in blind. Attempting to cull the bats is not only ineffective it's also unethical.

Actually the RSPCA is a bit more than a lobby group and they are given much higher credibility due to the various roles they play and the fact that they are given taxpayers donations and money to promote their agenda. If both sides are going to have a chance at getting the other point of view across where do they get the funding available to the RSPCA to present the opposing views? By law as a charity they are restricted in how much they can lobby so they use it under the guise of education. The industry funds it's own campaigns to promote it's point of view, unless you'd like government funding to go to an industry body in the interests of 'balance'? Would you have a problem with industry fact sheets promoting live export as hunky dory? Would they get blasted for pushing their own agenda and not providing info on both sides? What about the government's carbon tax 'education campaign'? Maybe you should write to Ms Gillard expressing your concerns about the blatant pushing of agendas under the guise of education using taxpayers money? I get that a there are problems with the RSPCA in general but in terms of this issue nothing is being forced down anyone's throat it is up to teachers to decide how to present the information to students, it's no different to an industry 'fact sheet' IMO.

The RSPCA is a lobby group I'd hardly expect them to provide a 'two sides of the story' factsheet, it's up to the teacher to get info on the other perspectives there is plenty out there from MLA and other livestock groups. My understanding of it is that this information is made available for teachers not just distributed randomly through schools. Not really sure why it's so surprising or upsetting to anyone

I've heard of it plenty of times not specifically animal welfare issues but similar ones with kids writing to the PM about refugees, asking the PM to apologise for the stolen generation etc. Just a quick google brought up one lesson plan where an assignment task is to write to the PM about renewable energy:

I think you'll find this sort of thing has been happening in schools for years I've heard of kids in schools being told to write letters to the prime minister about his or that social issue it's pretty common from what I've heard and seen.

Your two dogs are fairly heavily built spitz breeds so not really designed for the kind of terrain you are talking about, you want something nimble and light footed, I vote for the lighter terrier breeds and the mini poodle. ETA and the min pin

Lol she wouldn't want to get a horse then if she thinks $200 is steep

I think that if the police knew there was a risk of their dog being attacked (ie the owner threatening to let his dogs loose) they should not have brought the dog out, it would be different if the dogs rushed without warning but IMO the police dog was purposely placed in danger and I think the whole incident could have been avoided had they left the dog in the car and dealt with the situation without him. This is irrespective of the idiocy and culpability of the owner, in this case I feel that while the owner is undoubtably responsible for the incident, I think there is also an onus on the police to protect their dog by not bringing it into a situation where they know it will get attacked by other dogs.

True but I'm used to the horses a gash like that on them wouldn't get down to bone and most of the time can't be stitched anyway so they rarely get the vet for flesh wounds. I'm not as savvy with the doggies first aid so I though I'd check with doggy people but yeah it's better to be safe than sorry tdierikx yeah I though that was a pretty good price for the weekend callout, not that I would know what a weekday appointment costs because when my animals need a vet it's pretty much always been on a weekend or public holiday lol!

Thanks yeah it looks nice and neat Eventingpony you are an excellent guesser it was done under heavy sedation $233! :D

Hi everyone I'm back it's all good from the vet that deeper patch was bone so it was pretty deep but the vet wasn't too worried. She said I could choose whether or not to stitch as it would probably close on its own without an issue but I chose to stitch as Lulu is a bit of a boofhead and tries to push through gates and doors with her head so there was a definite possibility of reopening it. She only got a shot of ABs as it was a pretty clean wound so all in all not too bad, the damage on the bill wasn't too bad either so if anyone is bored of a Saturday night we can play vet bill bingo, no prizes though :p Not much point me trying to patch her up here I don't have much in the way of medical supplies only filta bac and purple spray for the horses. Here's little Lulu she's sleeping off the drugs now but seems ok all things considered, terdface sibe is in the crate having completely forgotten what all the fuss was about :rolleyes:

Got onto the Oakey vet so I'm going to take her in tonight, they charge an arm and a leg on weekends regardless so may as well get it done tonight then I can rest easy that she's been checked over. Will update when I get back.

Thanks guys yeah I'm pulling it a little bit to get the fur out of the way but it doesn't close fully when left alone so it probably wont heal on it's own. Just ringing around the vets to see if anyone is available.

Hi everyone, Well just split up a dog fight between my terdface sibe and my mum's SV, my sibe basically went for her he's gotten into a few fights before but it's mostly just spit and noise this time he really grabbed her Anyway I'm after some opinions about whether to get this stitched up, I'm used to horses and on them this would be a flesh wound that I'd just put a bit of purple spray on and let it heal but I'm after some doggy opinions as I've never had a wound like this on the dogs, what would you do? It hardly bled at all but I'm worried about the patch under the flesh I don't *think* it's bone but I don't know if it will heal properly on it's own.