Greytmate

And one in the glovebox and one in the ashtray? :D Leo died earlier this year (I should alter my signature) and Goldie is very old with cancer, so only Woody and Coco get to go for regular trips in the car. The mazda is very low to the ground, and the dogs find it easy to jump in and out. We haven't had the car long, and we really like it.

It will be applied when a valid complaint is made. Councils don't check everyone's properties, and they are very aware that many of the complaints they receive will be vexatious. I managed it when I lived in a corner unit. But if your yard is too small for a dog, don't get one. It would be lovely if we spent millions on setting up a proper criminal justice system for dogs, where they can be tried by a magistrate and they are innocent until proven guilty and proper evidence is supplied. But right now in QLD, we don't have that. ACO's do decide who is guilty and who is not. They did with the DD law, and they do now with the MD law. If it is the procedure of enforcement you have a problem with, getting rid of this law isn't going to change anything. There is still the community expectation that council should deal with aggressive dogs, and councils will deal with them as efficiently as they can. If you want your local council to employ a canine behaviour expert to investigate every time somebody disputes a dog aggression incident, you need to talk to your local council. The only reason council acts on complaints at all is to reduce their own liability, so I don't see why they would want to make the process any more complicated or risky for them than it is now. I think this law is workable. There are already dogs that have been declared menacing and who are now living behind secure fences.

In 2008 I spent a lot of time in consultation with the department about the new state act , and I did speak to them about that particular law. Did anyone explain why the dangerous dog law was not enough, since it already covered dogs who "scare" others? And already had all the required penalties applied? The dangerous dog law was too much. The new law means that dogs that cause (reasonable people) to be fearful, or who are only involved in a minor incident don't all have to be declared dangerous any more. There is now an option for council to give a milder penalty than just having to declare a dog dangerous. The standard fencing laws are written fairly weakly though, which is fine given that most people make sure that they have an appropriate fence for their dog. But not all dog owners do bother with appropriate fencing, and this law enables council to act on aggressive dogs that are behind dangerously deteriorating fences. It is a prevention thing.

We fit two greyhounds in the cargo area of our Mazda 6 wagon.

Not all pure breeders do take note of that, not all pure breeders place that above the importance of making money. How would a breeder easily prove which type they were? Or do breeders of purebreed dogs have nothing to prove, and we should accept on their say so that they are breeding better dogs than a cross-breeder can? Why does the MDBA have a higher code of ethics than the ANKC CoE, if you really believe that all breeders should be simply left to do whatever they please?

All these topics I feel are a little confusing. We have state laws, council laws, ANKC rules, and then there are other regulations that organisations (MDBA or breed clubs) can only apply to themselves. Seems like some laws are enforced, some are not. And that just isn't fair. But it is what we have to work with. From my own experience, I believe the way forward is for respectable organisations in that bottom tier to self-regulate, and use the most expert advice available to set best practice, and then use that for upwards change. It is also the only way I can see that we can establish reputable 'brands' which we can then promote successfully. Which is essential to keep the future gene pool large and healthy. You can cut and paste this post to just about every thread you have started lately Steve.

I see it as all part of the same project. No point having any regulations at all if we cannot even identify which dog we are talking about because dogs can be so easily substituted. Maybe it is over-regulated in some ways. But in other ways it is an entire free-for-all where the dishonest may never be able to be stopped. I'm not interested in regulation for regulation's sake. Red tape sux. I am only interested in seeing the sort of quality control type regulation which would make it possible for these purebreed dogs to be promoted as being something better than what random cross-breeders are producing.

By knowing how this law will be applied. But then, I am the sort of person that would never allow my dogs access to a boundary fence. I have always put internal fences in to keep my dogs back from property boundaries. Those using dogs to guard their boundaries might find this law affecting them. Which is a good thing, as people should be able to walk in public areas without feeling threatened by large aggressive dogs behind small flimsy fences.

Im not only interested in things which occur for breeding animals. I want to be able to enter info on its relatives including those which are never intended for breeding. Entering DNA profiles doesnt prove they were the breeding animals used unless the pups are done too. I am only talking about establishing parentage through DNA, not genetic profiling. The certificate would be matched to a microchip or tattoo identifying the dog. The pups would be done if they were going to be bred from. If they are not going to be bred from, knowing their parentage isn't as important. Having DNA to establish parentage keeps breeders honest by ensuring the dogs in the pedigrees can be identified. At the moment, it is very easy for people to substitute pups. There is no real way to verify that the pup you buy is the pup on the papers. If you can think of a better or cheaper way to keep dodgy breeders honest, we need to hear about it. Nothing will keep dodgy dishonest breeders honest. There are a dozen different ways they can operate to avoid detection if thats what they want even with DNA parentage of breeding dogs done especially if they sell all of their puppies as pets to pet shops or export or domestic pet buyers. There isn't any point for me knowing who the parents are if I cant use that info for genetic profiling and knowing who the parents are of every dog is just as important for me as knowing who the parents are of my dog. It is the only reason I breed registered dogs. Having said that this is something which is up to the CCs to consider and they may bring in but considering that many breeders still don't even chip puppies or their breeding dogs in a state where it has been law for a decade and that its not something which was recommended in the Bateson report and so far it has been voted against I cant see the purebred dog hobby going the way of the greyhound racing industry in the near future. What are people doing with different breeds in other countries? If there is no integrity, no quality control, nothing in place to catch dodgy breeding practices, then that means that purebreeds as a whole in this country lack integrity and the task of turning around people's negative perceptions will be a lot harder than it needs to be. You say that there isn't any point in knowing who the parents are if you can't use that info for genetic profiling? Really, so unless every breeding animal has a genetic profile done, there is no point in knowing who its parents are? Was there a point to it before you had access to genetic technology, or did you then have no point in knowing who your dog's parents were? Nobody is stopping you asking for genetic profiling to be done on any breeding animal or any other animal you own, if you think you need that information, and are willing to pay to collect it. If a registry started using DNA parentage testing, so that the registry knew the parentage of every breeding animal, that would have nothing at all to do with how you ran your breeding program, how you selected your breeding animals, and what information you collected about them and any other other animals in the breed. It is a suggestion merely to improve the integrity of the actual register and pedigrees. It isn't a tool to help breeders make decisions, its just to help keep all of them honest, and especially to prevent any dodgy practices infecting or damaging other breeding lines. At the very least with DNA parentage, you would know you were collecting the DNA or other information from the line you think you are collecting it from. Collecting any information with no way to positively match that with a dog, means that your info could be as dodgy as the breeder that swapped litter two generations back. If you have any better ideas to postively identify dogs, let's hear it. You are the one that came in and told us all how concerned you were about a certain problem, I just gave a suggested solution. Are you concerned really? Or are you only concerned until somebody offers a possible solution, and then you tell us that "Nothing will keep dodgy dishonest breeders honest." Don't you believe its possible to improve integrity of the registry? Or do things suit you better left just how they are now?

In 2008 I spent a lot of time in consultation with the department about the new state act , and I did speak to them about that particular law. I've posted my view of it a few times, I have spoken to some of the people that are expected to enforce it, they explained it and gave examples of how it would be used and it all sounded fair enough to me. So I'm happy enough. I got the laws I want. If you don't feel the same, go out and change society or something, don't argue with me about it.

Im not only interested in things which occur for breeding animals. I want to be able to enter info on its relatives including those which are never intended for breeding. Entering DNA profiles doesnt prove they were the breeding animals used unless the pups are done too. I am only talking about establishing parentage through DNA, not genetic profiling. The certificate would be matched to a microchip or tattoo identifying the dog. The pups would be done if they were going to be bred from. If they are not going to be bred from, knowing their parentage isn't as important. Having DNA to establish parentage keeps breeders honest by ensuring the dogs in the pedigrees can be identified. At the moment, it is very easy for people to substitute pups. There is no real way to verify that the pup you buy is the pup on the papers. If you can think of a better or cheaper way to keep dodgy breeders honest, we need to hear about it.

Steve, integrity problems could be avoided if a once-off DNA profile was done on each breeding animal. That has become cheap enough to be a reality for domestic dogs as it has been for years in greyhounds.

Ego is one of the biggest problems Steve. Everyone says that they want to do the best by their dogs, but from the outside it seems that egos are more important to many. The bad breeders chant the same mantra as the good ones. I believe you know what you are doing as a breeder Steve, but I also believe there are many breeders that have very limited knowledge, much less than even I do. When you say "I know what I am doing", they all join in, and your voice loses meaning. If breeders are unwilling to restrict themselves by consulting with experts and come up with a plan for the breed as a whole (as Jed claims some are doing), then I think outside restrictions do have to be enforced. Because no restriction at all has caused some problems. I would think the best thing to do is to do as Jed says, collaborations between genetic experts and breed groups. But if nothing like that is happening in a breed, who is to say the problems within that breed are not worsening?

Why ? You cant ask for this because you cant say what the breeder or breeders would be going after in their breeding program and every breed would have different goals at different times. Because it prevents individual dogs being abused (by puppy farmers) and it encourages (forces) genetic diversity. Two or three lines are more diverse than one. You assume that every breeder will want to use an "import" and that's not the case, not every breeder is blinded by the words " imported xxx " on the paperwork and many tread with caution, assess the whole dog and never go there. No, I assume that that we are talking about a hypothetical scenario (posed by Jed) where the only other option is to use a dog that carries a genetic illness. I believe it is possible to assess a dog's quality even if it is overseas. I don't care whether the dog is imported from Sweden, or "imported" from Townsville. If the breed is at such a serious bottle neck, It is important to bring in new lines. I would rather see a variety of lines available rather than one dog being overused, and ending up in every single line. Restricting service numbers would encourage this. Yes, last resort. Jed posted a horrible scenario about a breed in really bad genetic shape. There is no stud dog in Australia that isn't a carrier, and hard decisions have to be made. While I still believe that stud services should be restricted in general, if breed organisations can show why a temporary exemption should be made, that would sound reasonable to me. Especially after the explanation you gave me. In the same way that it might be reasonable to give a breed permission to open a stud book for a time. I'm not a genetic expert. However I think that genetic experts need to look at the breed as a whole rather than just the breed in this country. There would also need to be a compulsion for people within that breed to follow that plan set for them. And I think it would be harder to enforce that than it would to enforce just a straight limit of stud services. Most studs are overused by people for reasons other than the genetic health of the whole breed, so that is the main reason behind my suggestion. Overuse of stud dogs has caused problems. If people are prepared to put even more onerous voluntary restrictions on themselves in the form of breeding laws written by experts, I do believe there is a case for gaining an exemption.

Jed I disagree. I would rather see stud services limited and breeders importing frozen semen from other clear lines. Especially if A breed is in such bad genetic shape in this country as you describe. If we had the restriction of stud services, instead of people importing one dog, and studding it out as much as they possibly can (and making a fortune), they might choose to import a shipment of frozen semen containing straws from a few different stud dogs with clear lines (and selling those for a fortune instead).

I'm for regulating number of litters a dog can have, regulating how many times a dog can be used at stud, regulating how many people/staff per dog per property. But no limit on numbers of dogs. The best dog I ever owned was raised at a large kennel. He was tops.

You could try one of the bigger greyhound kennels that rear a lot of the puppies they breed. Wheeler greyhound kennels

I agree. Even if we can restrict them, educating them may be the best way to go. When GRV employed a veterinary behaviourist as Animal Welfare Business Development Officer, they did have the power to bring in more rules, but they started with education instead. Yes Steve. The definition of Puppy Farmer for many people around here is any breeder not keeping every dog they own as a house pet that is allowed to sleep on their bed. I actually agree with the RSPCA's minimum standards for kennelling, but only as a minimum. There is no way I will ever agree to people keeping dogs on dirt 24/7. The same way as I would never live in a house with a dirt floor myself. Aside from the kennelling conditions, there is also kennel enrichment/socialisation/neutralisation aspect. A good breeder will see these things as being essential, no matter how many dogs they breed. A bad breeder will ignore those things as there is no compulsion to provide them, and they do not seem to be cost effective.

I had McColls transport a trailer from Vic to QLD. Was cheaper than towing it. Before you buy the trailer, have you had somebody you trust go and check it? There have been some trailer scams going on.

There are two adults I know that when asked "Are your hands clean?" will always say "Yes". But on closer inspection they turn out to have grubby mitts leaving smudgy, greasy handprints everywhere. ;)

I don't have time to post much today, but there is a lot I want to say, some great ideas have been put forward. There is a reason for the decline of Pet Expos, and they were under utilised as a marketing tool anyway. But there are still a few things that need to be addressed before there is any point in doing more promotions. Seriously if people are wanting to put so much effort into promotion, there needs to be specific goals, strategy and planning to ensure it hits the target. For whole time I have been on DOL many people have been promoting purebreed dogs in the best way they know how. But 'our' market is still buying plenty of designer dogs in droves. Instead of buying the purebreed dogs that would suit them much better.

Life is not fair and other avenues are either risky or unethical. Children's safety has to be the priority. Children's safety is important but it was due to mischievious children that this problem came into being. There are other methods that can be adopted. The dog can be isolated when kids are over. Where there is a will, there is always a way! Perhaps boarding the dog overnight for the occasional sleepover or as the OP has stated, restricting it to one part of the backyard. Killing a dog that is loving and affectionate with members of its own family and relatives alike deserves far more than to be destroyed. That will only work if there is absolutely no chance that an unfamiliar child could accidentally wander into the dog's territory. It would require construction of a special enclosure for the dog, and perhaps changes to house and yard locks. That would restrict Nicole's children's current lifestyle, as Nicole explained "We live in a little court and the kids have friends in 5 different houses they play with on a daily basis and I am always on edge worrying incase a door gets left open". Providing exercise for this dog will require special consideration, as well as controlling the environment to avoid the dog becoming anxious about anything in future. It doesn't matter now why this dog is unhappy around strange children to the point of aggression, or whose fault that was. What is important is that no child is bitten by this dog. Nicole needs to consider all of the options and what is going to work for her now. Yes, when there is a will there is always a way, but there are huge risks to be considered too. No dog is bullet proof with strange kids and many child bites occur from dogs that have no history of aggression but too often dog owners are over confident that their dog will never react and relax supervision on a false sence of secuirty. With a reactive dog, you know it most likely will react, you deal with the situation and take responsibility to ensure it doesn't happen. There is more chance of a child being bitten by over confident owners believing their dog is bullet proof than a responsible owner who takes precautions to secure their reactive dog properly IMHO. That might be your opinion, but studies have proven that the most reliable indicator that a dog will show aggression is a previous history of aggression . There is more chance of a child being bitten by a dog that bites children than by a dog that does not.

Life is not fair and other avenues are either risky or unethical. Children's safety has to be the priority. Children's safety is important but it was due to mischievious children that this problem came into being. There are other methods that can be adopted. The dog can be isolated when kids are over. Where there is a will, there is always a way! Perhaps boarding the dog overnight for the occasional sleepover or as the OP has stated, restricting it to one part of the backyard. Killing a dog that is loving and affectionate with members of its own family and relatives alike deserves far more than to be destroyed. That will only work if there is absolutely no chance that an unfamiliar child could accidentally wander into the dog's territory. It would require construction of a special enclosure for the dog, and perhaps changes to house and yard locks. That would restrict Nicole's children's current lifestyle, as Nicole explained "We live in a little court and the kids have friends in 5 different houses they play with on a daily basis and I am always on edge worrying incase a door gets left open". Providing exercise for this dog will require special consideration, as well as controlling the environment to avoid the dog becoming anxious about anything in future. It doesn't matter now why this dog is unhappy around strange children to the point of aggression, or whose fault that was. What is important is that no child is bitten by this dog. Nicole needs to consider all of the options and what is going to work for her now. Yes, when there is a will there is always a way, but there are huge risks to be considered too.

I can only guess how people like that view castration.

Arguing with Sheridan is something that happens to everyone sooner or later. Don't let it put you off, it doesn't mean anything.