m-sass

The idea of BSL is to eliminate the types of dogs who killed poor little Ayen so when the owners do drop the ball they don't own the type of dog that will go on a killing spree with uncontrollable aggression. There is a good reason why the types of dogs, Pitbull's, Mastiff's etc and cross breeds of these types of dogs are not used by professionals in protection and guarding, there is a reason professionals use GSD's Rottweiler's, Belgian Shepherd's because they have the stability, intelligence and trainability to be a safer option in the community........I am not against people owning dogs for a protective purpose, but they need to get a proper one bred with the stability for that type of role, not the progeny of uncontrollable landsharks from a BYB offered for sale in the Trading Post, crap dogs like this are accidents waiting to happen and ultimately the death of other animals and sadly people/kids.

Ultimately, it's the owners responsibility to make sure that their dogs don't behave in that manner and they have effective control over them to prevent dangerous incidents occurring, but dogs who instinctively display aggressive and predatory behaviour is in the dog, not all dogs untrained and poorly managed will attack other animals and bite people, it's the default behaviour of that "type" of dog to attack and aggress where on the other side of the coin the authorities work on the stance if they ban the type or breed of dogs commonly known for aggressive behaviour, it will result in less attacks that irresponsible owners cause?.

I have found the "greatest" snobbery comes from owners of unrecognised breeds like the "oodles" etc and some farm brew working dogs also where they think what they have by breed mix is special where in reality they are just another BYB mutt. :laugh: I know someone who has 2 Golden Retriever x Standard Poodles who thinks the breed mix is special in a snobbery fashion which is a joke really, her dogs look "nothing" alike where the breed mix is so special in consistancy from a visual appearance it's hard to see much resemblence between the 2 dogs, one is also quite drivey the other quite flat, in this instance, what does this breed mix offer in terms of appearance and drive level........who knows?? As far as rescues and BYB's go, many owners I know of these types of dogs assume I am a snob owning purebreeds because of the cost difference to buy them, many rescue and BYB owners over the years have called me a fool for paying $1000+ for a dog when I can get one for a fraction of the cost from rescue or the Trading Post?. Whilst cost is not the determining factor for everyone who chooses rescue or BYB, cost has been the primary factor for most I know personally who don't buy pure breed dogs where $1000+ is too much outlay for "just a dog", even though many I know can easily afford it, they just won't pay the amount of money required for a good pedigree breeding

They have to at least have a report of an incident or situation occuring, but most importantly, a dog owner needs to keep a cool head if interviewed by the council and ask for details of the alledged incidents, time, date, what supposedly happened, and 9 times out of 10 the evidence is hearsay anyway. Many dog owners in this situation make admissions to council which strengthens the evidence against them, you can simply deny that your dog was involved in the alledged incident, a dog owner has the same rights to say an incident involving their dog didn't happen as someone has the rights to report that it did and is best IMHO to let council prove it :D

How long is the consultation for $295 Snook, seems expensive??

Make an appointment with K9pro to be taught how to use a prong collar :D

Most hormonal aggression found in a male dog occurs in face of a bitch on heat, otherwise the desexing fixes aggression tale is nonesense, in fact with a fear aggressive dog, desexing can make it worse. Typically, aggressive dogs are desexed and trained similtaneously with improvements in behaviour and the idea of the desexing providing the improvement is the training that made the difference. A dog with a learned behaviour of aggression outside of the exposure to a bitch on heat will make no difference in behaviour by desexing and training will beat the snip hands down.

Oh yes, that would stop the bogans dead in their tracks. Bad owners don't obey the laws NOW, why make more and more and more laws which won't be policed but which WILL stop law abiding caring breeders from breeding? And don't say it won't because as soon as you make a law that you need a permit to do something there is a fee attached - and many small-scale breeders simply cannot afford yet another fee on top of the costs they have now for the "privilege" of breeding a litter once every four or five years. Plus most of these laws are made by people who have no clue in the world about breeding dogs and they end up with rediculous requirements such as someone with two chihuahuas having a litter once every three years needs to build a $150,000 "breeding facility" to get a permit to do so. Permits and similar restrictions just opens the gate to large scale puppy farmers - which is the worst thing in the world for companion animals. The answer is education not legislation - always has been. Laws being in place and the laws being policed are two different things the two need to go hand in hand to be effective, that's a given. A permit to breed dogs IMHO is a good thing, there is no need for just anyone having the rights to breed dogs, it needs to be controlled. A breeding permit can have any criteria required, it could restrict puppy farming and it's not the cost of the permit say $50.00 per year, but it's the criteria to obtain a permit that matters. Sure bogans will still breed dogs without a permit and they need to knock them off for doing so $1000 fine first offence which doubles from then on. A permit system would stop many people breeding dogs who shouldn't be doing so as as far as the small scale breeder if they can't afford $50 for the permit, they can't afford anything to go wrong in the breeding either in that case that requires a bit more money for dog's welfare, can they really afford to breed dogs anyway??

I totally agree except many people seem not to like the idea of pressure being applied to the "badly bred dogs component", unfortunately when the ignorant/irresponsible owner surfaces it's too late, their dog has already done the damage IMHO, it's time control was placed upon dog breeding in general to eliminate the present structure which is ultimately a free for all, do as you please situation. It's the breeders of crap dogs faced the music, if you breed rubbish from randomly putting a male and female together that ends up a landshark which comes from a BYB NFI basis, their breeding of dogs needs to be formally stopped. Dog breeding on a do what ever you like basis is rediculous that it's been allowed to go on for so long It's a nice thought but it is pie in the sky stuff. How do you enforce dog breeding practices? They can't enforce the current laws they have now. I would prefer to see more education and involvement of the community. First there needs to be laws controlling dog breeding practices, perhaps a council permit to breed would be a good start.

I totally agree except many people seem not to like the idea of pressure being applied to the "badly bred dogs component", unfortunately when the ignorant/irresponsible owner surfaces it's too late, their dog has already done the damage IMHO, it's time control was placed upon dog breeding in general to eliminate the present structure which is ultimately a free for all, do as you please situation. It's the breeders of crap dogs faced the music, if you breed rubbish from randomly putting a male and female together that ends up a landshark which comes from a BYB NFI basis, their breeding of dogs needs to be formally stopped. Dog breeding on a do what ever you like basis is rediculous that it's been allowed to go on for so long

Council will conduct an enquiry from result of a complaint and act on the basis of the evidence presented. The owner of the dog alledged to have committed an offence will be the first person interviewed after the complaint is received. Council don't just declare dogs on someone's say so without an investigation into the matter.

We talking about the bolded stories at the top of the page? Two stories of dogs attacking either each other or another dog. Two stories of dogs hanging themselves. Two stories of dogs getting out of the yard and being knocked over and killed. One story of a dog being poisoned. Those ones? I wondered the same thing TT and how it was relevant to this discussion (ie. the OP was about a dog biting a child). It's just another excuse for the Bull breed haters, to jump on the media hysteria bandwagon. You might tell that to the sites owner then? I wouldn't bother, because everyone here has a right to post. I just get annoyed at ignorant people who bag Bull breeds because of the media. My boy who is no longer with me, was one of those "vicious" breeds, yet the moment a child, or a small dog came near him, he immediately dropped on his stomach, I never trained him to do that, he sensed they were smaller so didn't want to scare them. The media & Hugh Wirthless are the reason that BSL came in. Are you saying the breeds reported as Bull breeds by the media are falsified? What breed was the dog who charged into the house and killed the poor little girl, a Labrador reported as a Bull/Mastiff X perhaps?

Out of interest, does you club have any data in support of the front attaching harness providing better results in teaching the loose leash walk over a prong collar? I don't know about any data but Justice and I have had good results with the front attach harness. Of course it needs to be used in conjunction with training as on its own it won't teach loose leash walking. It does however prevent Justice from pulling forward like a freight train as it just throws him off balance and spins him around to face me if he does this. I also like that there is no pressure at all on his neck if he should pull (although he's pretty good now so this isn't really an issue any more). I have no objection to prong collars if they're necessary for a particular dog and the owner has been shown how to use it properly so as to prevent hurting or injuring their dog but I wouldn't have thought it would be suggested as the first port of call for most dogs? If a club promotes and sells a front attaching harness because they are the best, I would assume they have tried and tested all the training tools to make that statement and was just interested how they arrived at that conclusion to promote the harness over other tools like the prong?

Out of interest, does you club have any data in support of the front attaching harness providing better results in teaching the loose leash walk over a prong collar?

No, I am not a Bull breed hater at all, but I do hate the type of people who refuse to recognise that gameness and predatory type aggression is bred into the dog. You can't put aggression and gameness into any dog, that's absolute nonesense to the point that many of the guardian breeds are not strong enough to be trained in defence without the genetics for the job. Many of these BYB Bull/Mastiff type breedings often passed off as Pitbulls are bred for aggression to be sold as protection type or tough dogs. I have a problem with these type of breedings and the ease at which just anyone can aquire them.

You didn't know dogs like that are in the spotlight 12 months ago when you aquired him??.

I would love to see random dog breeding under control but that is pie in the sky stuff at the moment. As for the bully/mastiff breeding,as has been pointed out many times in this sort of arguement, these sort of 'people' will just move onto other breeds. And considering Victoria apparently has tough laws on these 'sort of dogs' it obviously isn't working. It is a difficult problem, the answer in my opinion is to make people responsible for the actions of their dogs, no matter what breed. I tend to be of the opinion that these sorts of people choose the Bully/Mastiff types of dog for a reason. I don't think they possess any training skills to extract aggression responses out of anything otherwise they would just own anything from a Labrador to a Great Dane and get the same aggression responses and attack results?. I think with the breed styles taken away from them to produce preditory behaviour from other breeds, they would struggle to achieve it?. I still think there is some merit in the madness of legislation, take the Bully/Mastiff's off theses people and give them a nice well bred Cocker Spaniel instead, the commumunity would be a safer place :D Give one of these Numpties a Cocker Spaniel, add a little bit of neglect perhaps some aversives and a big scare during its fear period and you would probably still find them walking down the street with the dog off lead resulting in a dog attack. Currently the average Cocker owner is on average reasonably responsible ( because the real numpties have other tougher looking dogs) and will keep aggressive dogs out of situations where they can do damage. But if Cockers were the last and only breed available and these numpties ended up with them then I can assure you there would still be dog attacks and suddenly it would be cocker spaniels being banned.... There are plenty of numpties who own all different breeds and mixtures of now, I know plenty but fortunately the dogs they own are good natured dogs, but had the numpties I know owned dogs of genetic aggression, they would bite people for sure given the lack of responsible management these owners provide for their nice dogs. I have never yet seen aggression put into a dog, aggression, gameness and predatory behaviour is bred into a dog IMHO.

My old boy was fine with people but had massive dog aggression, and I remember the fist time I stopped and spoke with another dog walker, had my boy in a drop beside me and he didn't arc up at all WOW.......felt like I had just won a world obedience title And the first time we went to the vet and didn't have to sneak him in through the back door in case he saw another dog. People who haven't had a reactive dog think you are nuts getting excited over your dog not playing up, but it's a massive achievement and a real breakthrough when your program starts to get reliable results. I never reached a point a with my old boy where I could confidently let him off the leash with strange dogs, but he was good under leash control in the end, and I bought a new puppy who became his best friend, that was something I doubted could ever be achieved well introducing another dog into the home, but having a puppy helped him to enjoy dogs instead of wanting to kill them it seemed, after 6 months with the pup, he was far more relaxed around dogs in general. It took me a couple of years to really get a handle on my old boy's behaviour and make a permanent change, but having that experience and conquering it, I admire and respect people with reactive dogs who dedicate themselves to give rehabiliation a red hot go, it's so worth the effort and the learning framework achieved in the end :D My old boy was my 6th Retriever, I think a victim of chasing conformation in the breeding over temperament, but was unusual for a Goldie to be DA as a rule of thumb, so most people blamed me for his behaviour, what I didn't do right in his upbringing to the point I was starting to believe it, but the DA was in the dog, he was just a crappy breeding temperament wise with a lovely conformation, you get that in some dogs, and people do sling blame at us for owning reactive dogs, my advice there is don't listen to it and just concentrate on a program to get through it. :) Obviously we desexed him and didn't use him at stud, but the desexing made absolutely no difference to his reactive behaviour in the slightest, many advise desexing a male as the first step in rehabilitation, it may help in some situations perhaps, but in my case it made no difference whatsoever??

I would love to see random dog breeding under control but that is pie in the sky stuff at the moment. As for the bully/mastiff breeding,as has been pointed out many times in this sort of arguement, these sort of 'people' will just move onto other breeds. And considering Victoria apparently has tough laws on these 'sort of dogs' it obviously isn't working. It is a difficult problem, the answer in my opinion is to make people responsible for the actions of their dogs, no matter what breed. I tend to be of the opinion that these sorts of people choose the Bully/Mastiff types of dog for a reason. I don't think they possess any training skills to extract aggression responses out of anything otherwise they would just own anything from a Labrador to a Great Dane and get the same aggression responses and attack results?. I think with the breed styles taken away from them to produce preditory behaviour from other breeds, they would struggle to achieve it?. I still think there is some merit in the madness of legislation, take the Bully/Mastiff's off theses people and give them a nice well bred Cocker Spaniel instead, the commumunity would be a safer place :D

If you worked off of statistics and worked out how many bull breeds and their crosses there are in the community they are going to represent a lot of the issues that are out there. Doesn't mean there aren't other breeds responsible but the 'staffy' type breeds would have to outnumber the labrador as Australia's most popular breed. You could then turn that around and talk about how many there are and the majority are good, law abiding dogs, even though their owners aren't! I think they look at the probability if these irresponsible owners had another type of dog less likely to exhibt such a preditory behaviour, less attacks would result??. To me it's just a hard case to argue that dogs of this type are community safe when they keep featuring in attacks as often as they appear to??. Personally I would prefer to see legislation to control random dog breeding in general, and breeding dogs of potentially volitile traits by the people putting some of these Bully/Mastiff type breedings together are problems waiting to surface.

Of course these incidents are primarily the dog owners fault, but when these owners drop the ball you can't condemn the government for applying breed restrictions when 9 times out of 10, it's same style of dog involved in the most serious of attacks. They may not be Pitbulls, but they are not Rottie's, GSD's, Lab's or Standard Poodles who regularly feature, like clockwork, they will be some Bull/Mastiff/Amstaff cross breed types. Irresponsible people own all types of dogs and drop the ball everyday, but it does seem a patten when they drop the ball with these Bully style of dogs, they end up attacking someone??. I don't agree with breed restrictions per se, but gee whizz, if these Bully things keep attacking people as they seem to in a consistant pattern, legislation against these breed styles will get tougher.

Behaviour modification of a reactive dog I think is by far the hardest thing to train out and is truly a remakable achievement when someone does rehabilitate a reactive dog, it's not easy and is too easy to exceed thresholds and have to start over again, but the learing capacity in doing so is priceless, I think every would be enthusiast trainer/handler needs one reactive dog to train in their lifetime. Although I don't want another reactive or DA dog by choice, I owe the most I learned about training and behaviour to my old reactive boy, and I actually feel quite fortunate now for owing him and what he taught me about reading behaviour and general management, mastering a reactive dog can only make you a better trainer/handler :) Me too I think it's terrible to see owners of reactive dogs trying to do the right thing attending obedience classes to be turned away. I understand that reactive behaviour may not fit into a particular class, but these people are feeling desparate not knowing where to turn next and I like to embrace these people like "ok, you have a reactive dog, you get some like that so lets help you work through it". I have seen people yelled at, told not bring "that" dog back to class etc etc is no way to deal with it, in fact, I am drawn to these people more than someone who can't get the focused heel right. I am a big supporter of reactive dog classes, every training school should have one with an instructor dedicated to the position I think.

Reactivity is a little outside of the general obedience instructor's field I think and to be successful there needs to be a lot of experience and a box full of tools to cater for the individual reactive dog. Too often the owners of reactive dogs are blamed unfairly in the way the dog was raised which IMHO for the most part is nonesense, reactivity is in the dog or it's not. Experience how to raise a dog correctly who has reactive tendancies is a ball game beyond the raising of a dog who hasn't got a reactive bone in it's body which can only be learned by owning a reactive dog and working through it with a trainer who knows how to manange the behaviour, but to blame the owner as many do, I think is most discouraging for them. Anyone can say what a wonderful job they have done raising a non reactive dog, give the same people a genetically reactive dog and see how good they are then??.

oh my god are you kidding that would freak me out let alone the dog Thats why we have the red bandana rule, any dogs wearing them never get approached by other dogs or people. People already have learned to give red bandana dogs about a 5m berth :laugh: That and the rule is no approaching dogs without the owners express permissions anyway, bandana or not. The red bandana rule is GREAT idea So many clubs just don't cater well for reactive dogs, apart from making the owners feel like complete knobs because their dog's react or their dogs are not welcome because of their reactivity, it can present a real problem for people trying to get effective training for dogs like this. Sometimes all you need is the exposure and atmoshere to slowly bring a reactive dog into for it to settle and gain confidence in that environment. Given that reactive dogs are potentially dangerous, I would be more inclined to embrace these dogs and owners instead of turning them away and I think more clubs need to have a reactive dog section to help these dogs and people who own them.

That's a very true statement I think, reactive dogs are a handful and take up far too much training time for sporting trainers to waste their training time on dogs like this and generally set their sporting achievements with dogs of greater stability to begin with. Same with motivating high drive dogs for sport is so easy compared with motivating a couch potato. I think as far as trainers/behaviourists go, it's best to select the one's experienced at what you are trying to achieve with your dog?