mita

Yes, the weed matting plastic. Also peg some chicken wire on the ground, for 1-2 ft along the fenceline. Dogs don't like walking on it....which will keep them away from the fenceline even after it's covered with black plastic. Because they may still be tempted to go sniffing around at the bottom of the plastic. Alternatively, you can sprinkle the stuff you got from the garden shops to keep dogs off gardens. But I'd only use that, in conjunction with the black plastic visual block.

Westie, you've said something very close to what a vet once remarked to me. I used to take our p/b tibbies to his vet surgery....& he really loved and admired them, for all the characteristics that had been bred into them, by registered breeders who were passionate about the breed. He said that it frustrated him, how so many people were bringing 'designed' oodles to him & those poor little dogs often had so much against them. He could not understand why anyone would buy in that direction, when fine examples of purebreds exist (& other smalll purebreeds as well as tibbies). Like, that very day, our tibbie girl had palled up with the loveliest little p/b poodle that was in the surgery, too. Another example, that made him shake his head....why people would go past such delightful creatures. And it's not those dear little crossbreeds' fault. As spyke's pointed out, they are so likely to turn up in rescue, where they deserve a loving home, like any dog. But it's why people breed & sell & buy those little mites, in the first place.

And a blooming brilliant rant it was. You deserve the best of what you fancy for your stiff drink. You were so right....the very first sentence or two, set the 'thinking' level for that stuff. Dismissed what a dog looks like, in favour of a dog's breed which is, of course, what a dog looks like.

Councillor Andrew Wines is hosting a fun afternoon for dogs & their owners at the Ferny Grove Dog Park , Arbor St Ferny Grove, Brisbane on Sunday 9 October from 2 pm I understand there'll be games, prizes etc.

Yes, nicely said, megan....and marion, too. I remember one of our DOLers, ages back, posting about a homeless man & his dog, who were regulars somewhere in the business centre of Sydney. I remember she was one of the many individuals who took it on themselves to help them.

Keep your 'silly' remarks to yourself & be civil. I've pointed out that there's ongoing discussion & debate about animals rights. Just as there's always ongoing discussion & debates about the question of any rights. I am not giving a charter or a law on animal rights. The ongoing debate is because rights do not occur naturally. They arise out of debates & discussions in communities.....and can become very heated and polarised. Often critics argue that some new 'right' is at odds with some other existing 'right'. Like, the opponents of giving votes to women, pointed out that was in conflict with women being under the direction of their husbands in the law of the time. If there becomes enough support in the community, only then are particular rights given....by way of the legal framework or an agreed upon charter. My position is that the debate and discussion that go in a community around any new perspective on rights....is healthy. From all sides.

No one has rights. Rights are agreed upon & then given. Which is why they are continuously evolving, via discussion and debate. And find their way into community standards or into a legal framework. You lost me. I'd expect I would.

No one has rights. Rights are agreed upon & then given. Which is why they are continuously evolving, via discussion and debate. And find their way into community standards or into a legal framework. Every person who has rights also has responsibilities. An animal cannot have rights because they cannot agree to the resultant responsibilities. It is our job as the people with the rights to have the responsibility for an animals welfare and animal welfare is very very different from animal rights. By your own personal definition, a baby or a mentally retarded person cannot be given rights under the law. Neither could a person in a coma. The question of rights is an ongoing debate because it's something that the community decides if it will agree to give....&, if so, is then formulated under the law, or under an agreed upon charter. Which is why I have no worries about community discussion & debate on the matter.

No one has rights. Rights are agreed upon & then given. Which is why they are continuously evolving, via discussion and debate. And find their way into community standards or into a legal framework.

Interesting quote.

Yes, I've had friends who've praised her help, too.

I wasn't suggesting that you change to another breed.. I've stuck to adopting a second dog of the same breed.....& very roughly same adult age. Not just because I like my preferred breed, but the dogs have similar breed characteristics that I've found help them bond and settle that bit more easily. Also the breeder has known their personalities & how they'll complement each other. So I can understand you're thinking of sticking to borders. Maybe other DOLer who've mixed the pair by adding a different breed, would have ideas about that. And their different experience.

I agree. So glad you've made a decision. I've been in a similar situation a few times....& each time I regretted that I didn't make the decision earlier. In my case, I had one tibbie adult girl remaining & I adopted another adult tibbie girl from a breeder who knew her personality down to her socks tops. So there was a matching which eventually proved her right. OK, for a few weeks there were occasional hissy fits. But very soon, they settled to be like born 'sisters'. Recently, another Brisbane person adopted a female adult to be pal for their young adult male. Once again, there was good advice from the breeder on the potential 'newie's' personality. Who just happened to be my girl's daughter with a similar nature. So we did a test run of her boy with my girl. And they got on fine. When the new tib arrived, there were a few 'spats' but within a couple of weeks, they're like 'brother' & 'sister' born. The boy now gets worried if his new 'sister' is taken out of his sight. He adores her. (They're all desexed pets.)

I think you're doing the right thing contacting organisations that specialise in placing dogs in special needs situations...each of which is different. So those organisations would want to hear what you have to say in order to make a match. Best wishes. And good on you for making contact on DOL to work thro' the issues.

I'm disappointed but not surprised about Julia Gillard's decision to buy an oodle. I pegged her as a shallow problem-solver before the election (& Tony Abbott as a narrow problem-solver). And her very first announcement, following her election, was to say she'd solved the asylum seeker problem by sending them to East Timor. Then showing she didn't know who runs that country. And it's gone on, from there. Anyone wanting to get some independent, in-depth information about getting a dog, only has to check CHOICE'S guide (that's the Australian Consumers' Association). Obviously, JG didn't: Hybrid vs pure bred In the last few years, so-called designer dogs (think ‘spoodle’, ‘cavoodle’ and ‘shnoodles’) have become a sensation. The concept comes from mixing two purebred dogs to create first crosses for a specific purpose, such as a low-shedding coat or particular aesthetic qualities. Unlike pedigree dogs, these fashionable pups are not considered ‘breeds’ because they’re not registered with the Australian National Kennel Council (ANKC) and the breeders aren’t scrutinised for their breeding practices. This is why buyers should be extremely careful when purchasing a hybrid puppy. Hybrid breeders often promise qualities such as “hypoallergenic”, “non-shedding” and “the best of both breeds” in their dogs. But how many of these claims are true? The Australian Veterinary Association’s Dr Anne Fowler says that while ‘hybrid vigour’ does exist for cross-bred animals, genetics remains largely a ‘numbers game’. “I wouldn’t think that getting the best of both breeds is going to happen every time. It comes down to the individuals and their genetics,” she says. “It also depends on ‘penetrants’ — that is, how inheritable certain characteristics are and how well they manifest into something we see.” Responsible breeders screen their breeding animals for common genetic diseases to ensure they don’t pass those genes to new generations.

It can be a hard task, persuading puppy/dog buyers that there are ways to go & traps to avoid. There's already so many wrong ideas ingrained in the pet buying public. A very good document that gently points people away from puppy farms, unregistered backyard breeders & producers of designed mixed-breeds, is the Dog Buying guide from CHOICE (the Australian Consumers' Association). Which points out the lack of scrutiny on those 'breeders'' practices, and quotes the AVA that their claims about the 'good' of mixing breeds, don't stand up. It doesn't take much reading between the lines, to see they're pointing people towards registered breeders of purebreds. And they specifically add competent rescue, too. And, bless CHOICE, the websites they recommend dog buyers go look at, include Dogzonline and Pet Rescue. OK, this guide mightn't be perfect in everyone's eyes, but it's damn good at saying the basics. It should be pinned up & passed around, all over the place. People are happy to look up the CHOICE guides for buying just about everything....well, tell dog buyers that there's recommendations for them, too. http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/household/backyard/pets/buying-a-dog.aspx

Well done, Gracie. It's good to see positive stories of how dogs interact with people getting into the public mind.

It was a Pointer owner who first described the colour 'liver' for me....as it fitted her dog. And my impression was it indeed looked like cooked liver. The words for dogs' colours are fascinating. When I was first just hearing about tibetan spaniels, the breeders would describe one as 'parti-colour'. I thought they were saying, 'party- colour'.....which puzzled me. What colour is a 'party'? Balloons, streamers??? Finally I was told 'parti-colour' meant one solid colour on a background of white. Ah ha! A friend who's recently adopted an RSPCA dog (in Perth) solved the 'what's the colour problem'. He's named the dog ''Brindle'.

That's a good point. Cold data wouldn't differentiate the circumstances. Yet it's actual circumstances for how various dogs finish up in a pound, that would provide the information about the various risk factors for it happening. Qualitative data as well as quantitative data is needed for that. Rather than publishing the prefix, maybe it could be used by the pound to simply advise the original breeder of the dog's situation. But, even then, I wonder if privacy legislation would prevent that being done.

Exactly! That used to be a frequent theme on these DOL forums. If the present Council by-laws regarding dog management were policed, then there'd be less mess & less of authorities going off in the wrong direction. Those basic dog management laws should be 'over-taught' to the public.....to both dog owners & others as well. I notice the Brisbane Council registration renewal notice, always has the basic things you must do with your dog, in pictorial form across the bottom. With a more comprehensive, but still succinct, summary on the back. Possibly people's eyes just slide off these reminders.....so all other ways, like using radio, TV, local newspaper etc could keep them in the public mind. Interestingly, tho', the people getting their registration renewal might not be the audience who need the message most. I read a US study that found dogs becoming involved in serious problems, were most likely from owners who didn't register their dogs. Another curious thing found was that these owners tended to have more than the average traffic offences.

How can you seriously come onto a public forum and advocate for people to break the law and believe thats O.K.? Surely you know in the dog world that people will accuse you of all manner of things and its not O.K. to just run riot and have no regard for the law in the name of some cause. There's a highly respectable line of enquiry....in ethical circles. It's an age-old question, is it 'right' to sometimes break a law, and, if so, in what circumstances. For example, some civil disobedience lay behind the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jnr in the US. The position is generally expressed as, is it morally acceptable to break a law, if, not doing so, means that a perversion of law will continue. Happened in my own state of Qld back in the 1970s. Reactionary, highly conservative Premier Jo banned any kind of demonstration in public streets (with no permits available). He was rock solid against any pleas thro' regular channels to reverse this. Bless the Q'ld University students. They assembled on campus & marched to the city a number of times, because the only way left to highlight the problem, in that case, was to break the law on that ban. Policing was much rougher, then....& some of those kids got themselves bashed with batons. Eventually it sickened the general public so much, that the Gov had to change that law & allow permits to have demonstrations.

Tibbies have hare-feet like mountain goats & their Himalayan past has left them with the right 'head' for heights. People often find their Tibbie sitting on a window-sill high above the ground. They're so sure-footed that they won't come to grief. Our Tibbie girl got accidentally locked out one night, in a dreadful storm. We searched all over the yard for her & insde the downstairs storeroom. No sign of her. Then someone looked up. She was perched on a high shelf in a pile of towels. She'd climbed the ladder leaning against the shelves. Another Tibbie owner was working up on his roof & felt a dig in his ribs. It was his Tibbie who'd climbed the ladder to join him.

Good thinking, chris.

Wise move to let the other breeders know. Only positive thing about this rude person, is that he let you know he wasn't going to follow your contract. The ones that are increasingly worrying me, are those that genuinely 'signed up' at the time of adoption. But later succumbed to the ''But he/she's so gorgeous, it'd be a shame not to have 1 litter'. Just at the opposite end. One of the good tibbie breeders told me about a lady who'd adopted one of her puppies. This lady, a caring pet owner, joked to her, that she'd had to front up to almost more scrutiny in adopting the pup than in adopting her child. But she meant it as a light-hearted compliment to how much the breeder valued her puppies.

dee lee, I'd say your moment was a very fine one. You were dealing with someone so thick and insensitive to others that he couldn't see the damage & havoc he was causing by letting his dog off-lead in public. Good on you, all round... right up to reporting it to the council ranger. DOLers have said many times, that 'dangerous' dog incidents could be greatly prevented if the already existing laws were monitored and policed. Like the simple one of having dogs on leads & under firm control when out in public. The bloke you met deserves the book thrown at him, in this regard. And the streets might get a bit safer, if it does.