Odin-Genie

Seriously??? My dogs destroyed my yard when they were puppies. I had to lay new grass for two years in a row!! I also received a barking complaint from one of my neighbours two years back and I took the advice from this forum as well as brought in a dog behaviourist. This when my dogs were walked/taken to the dog park morning and evening every day without fail. All these issues are now resolved. But at no time did I even consider giving up my dogs. I can still understand wanting to rehome a dog you can't manage. But I find it unacceptable to try and sell the dog to get your money back. A dog is part of the family and you do what is best for the dog.

Or perhaps they are too lazy to groom their dog themselves and want to push their problem to a groomer!!! I always groom my dogs myself. They stand quietly in the bath while I shampoo them. And I can definitely say that if a single strand of hair gets matted on my dogs I would know and it would be cut off asap. The one time I tried a mobile groomer, he was spraying water with the hydrobath hose directly on my dog's face. It was a good thing that I was standing right next to my dog. I told him to stop immediately since my dog was getting water in his nose and mouth and was seriously squirming while this guy thought it was funny and was laughing. Now I would not leave my dogs with a groomer ever unless I knew them personally. I think the issue is that both groomers and ownerscan be good or dodgy. I can understand how groomers could find it annoying to have owners around while they are grooming since some owners would be constantly criticising. But I can also understand how some owners would want to be with their dogs while they are getting groomed to ensure they are not mistreated.

While I do agree with others that your comment was harsh, I agree that clients should be told that their dogs may need to be disciplined if they misbehave. And let the owners of the dog decide if they want to give their business under those conditions. And should I inform them that I will use a muzzle , clamp their jaws with their hair and my fingers, restrain the dog or use a correction if necessary ? If you were grooming my dogs, I would prefer that you do inform me about all that. I would want to exactly how my dogs might be treated and thus make an informed decision about using a particular grooming service. If a dog owner is horrified that their pooches might be muzzled etc if they misbehave, then they should at least have the option of taking their business elsewhere or groom them at home.

While I do agree with others that your comment was harsh, I agree that clients should be told that their dogs may need to be disciplined if they misbehave. And let the owners of the dog decide if they want to give their business under those conditions.

& what would you have done if the dog was not an angel after that ? The next step ? I have been a groomer & would not have my dog groomed by many people I have seen doing this job. I have let people watch while I have done their dogs & there is absolutely nothing I would do behind their back that I would not do if they were there. Christina, you are exactly the kind of groomer that I would confidently take my dogs to. While I understand the need for disciplining dogs if they are not cooperating with grooming, I would be really annoyed if a groomer treated my dogs like angels while I was there and waited for me to leave to discipline them.

Signs of friendliness can be quite subjective to dogs. An offlead dog running up to an onlead dog isn't necessarily seen as friendly. Many dogs would react badly to an offlead dog running up to them, particularly when they are on lead. Dogs don't like strange dogs getting into their space. Doesn't mean they need to be muzzled.

That description (in the letter) could also be that of a highly active puppy wanting to play!!! I've seen plenty of puppies at that age who try and lunge at any dog passing by. My puppy used to try that when he was that age. But because he looked incredibly cute, no one ever thought it was aggressive. Just because it seemed like a pit bull the owner of the Ridgeback could have translated that behaviour as aggression. A biased person can easily read 'snarling' into the high strung behaviour.

Good on you I don't let anyone touch my dogs or discipline them unless its done in a way that I approve. The CM wannabes are the worst!!!

True. But this will also stop people from adopting any bull type breeds from shelters and any bull type dog that ends up in a pound will be PTS.

if she is registered my understanding is that she can't be seized. If they decide she is a PB (she doesn't look like one, which seems to be the test!) then she may need to wear a muzzle outside your property, and be on leash only. Aren't staffies and pitbull terriers genetically identical? How can they look different then? If such a law is implemented, how will anyone ever differentiate between a staffordshire and a pitbull terrier, unless the former is a pure breed with papers?

You can't guarantee there was no major trauma or provocation. There is just to many ifs with dog attacks to make a statement like your above. That was a question, not a statement!!

There have been quite a few discussions regarding pros and cons of desexing dogs. But if being entire and reaching maturity can contribute to aggressiveness then desexing should be strongly recommended to average owners of male pet dogs.

I'm talking about learning from this incident and educating people about any identifiable indicators that this could potentially happen. And I'm willing to bet they were there. RSG's identified two - young dog, reaching maturity and male. There's a whole list of others. I'd want to know about the wife's relationship with this dog in detail. Are male young dogs more of a danger than other dogs? Is that because they are at an age where they are trying to assert themselves? And should owners of male dogs at that age be particularly cautious of their dogs? Could a well-loved family pet turn on its owner so viciously that it ends up killing the person without any major trauma or provocation?

I've inserted my two (Odin and Genie)

Don't agree. Parents are supposed to control their kids too. But if a snotty kid jumped on me in the park and I pushed him/her away or hit the kid, would you consider it ok? Granted the kid was invading my personal space and the parents weren't in control, but my reaction would have been excessive compared to the action that caused it. Same applies to dogs, particularly puppies. Why would we ever think it's ok to hit or kick a little puppy in its own home by an adult human being who is in no danger, just because the adult seems to be annoyed? I don't put that much value on a human being's inconvenience over an animals's well being.

If anyone threatened to hit my dogs, that person will not be allowed in my house...EVER!!! I would cut off all connection with someone like that. Your house, your rules. And if your neighbour can't respect that, then he should not be coming to your house. If you want them to continue visting your house then you would have to crate your dog while they are there, or have the children play inside while the puppy is allowed to play outside.

I'd have to disagree with this one. I can take things straight out of my dogs' mouths with no trouble- they know they'll get it back (unless it's a bit of bone that I know they'll have too much trouble with, in which case it gets swapped for a new one, so no loss for them) and no one tries to swallow or growls at me. Teaching a dog to accept having things removed from its mouth, in my opinion, makes them safer; if they're eating something dangerous, you can get it back without a fight. If they've stolen someone else's dinner, you can get it back. If they're choking or having trouble with something in their mouth, no issues with sticking your hand in there (I've had to do this once before and I'm very grateful my dogs are used to this sort of thing). Obviously this requires training but given the ability to tolerate that sort of handling could literally save your dog's life, worth doing. Experiences are only negative if you make them negative for your dog- remove bone, insert treat, praise, give back bone- positive experience for the dog. My goldy had a resource guarding issue as a puppy. Her trainer asked me to use the swap option. So everytime I asked her to drop the bone, I gave her a slice of raw meat. That way she saw my approach and my picking up the bone as a rewarding event. However, i picked up the bone only after she had almost finished it. Today, at three years of age, I can take any bone right out of both of my dogs' mouths, without even using a reward, and be 100% sure that there will be no reaction.

Dropping his lead and walking away might work, but I don't trust his recall enough to do it near a road. My GR tries to do this as well. It's because she wants to continue walking and not go home!!! When she tried it in the oval when I headed home, I dropped the lead, turned my back to her and walked away. She promptly followed me. At other times I give her treats when she moves in the right direction.

There are plenty of people on this forum who have DA dogs and manage them perfectly well. A DA dog is a nuisance if it is not managed well by the owners. But being DA is not reason enough to PTS.

It's actually Wandering Jew, not sure where the name came from, but I suppose political correctness will one day have it changed to Wandering Dew ...that name almost makes it sound "heavenly" which it certainly is not...it is so hard to eradicate even with herbicides. I have a lot of it, & it doesn't bother my dogs, but I would much rather NOT have it. That's right. It is called 'Wandering Jew' after the mythical character who was cursed to walk the earth till the Second Coming for taunting Christ.

My dogs are inside 80% of the time. When we go to work they stay inside. When we have visitors, our dogs sit with us. No begging for food. I think dogs don't get the opportunity for as much socialization here due to restrictions. When I first took my dogs to the Hornsby shopping mall (not inside the Westfield of course), they behaved quite badly, pulling, sniffing everything. However we persisted and now they come with us when we have dinner there (in the outside area) and we usually get compliments on how well behaved they are.

I don't think I could ever use the same name. My dogs' names to me are special names associated with them as individuals. And to use the same name would somehow feel to me that I am replacing them.

Looks like it's been removed from all websites. Perhaps the new owners of Yurti the dog don't want this type of publicity.

My dogs don't get human ice-cream. I get them Doggy-lato, which is a peanut based ice-cream for dogs. They love it

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