Little Gifts

I'm just speculating here as I have no science knowledge of such things. In the wild I'd expect that a wild dog would be foraging throughout the day and would need nutrients to match day time activities. They are not strictly nocturnal animals so do not save their hunting for only night time like some creatures. They would probably eat anytime they could get a meal and their activity level probably means those nutrients are used up pretty quickly and the chance of over eating is slim. So in captivity if they were fed only a night time meal and then go to sleep would that meal still be available to sustain them throughout their daytime activities? Does the canine system become attuned to the patterns of feeding and do some kind of slow release thing? I feed twice a day. Same size each time (except for one dog which I've detailed below). It was how all our animals even as kids have always been fed. Even when I have cared for breeders dogs they have always been fed something twice a day even if the size of the meals were different. It's is not even something I've ever questioned! One of our current dogs does bile vomits if she gets over hungry during the night. She wants to be fed at 7am and 5pm every day and some nights will start asking for snacks from as early as 8.30pm. We give them because she knows her body better than us. But if she doesn't ask we don't offer. So we have to juggle quantities at meal times based on the amount of snacks given out the night before. I would never be doing this if she didn't seem to need her food spread out at night time. If your dogs are doing fine on one meal a day then I don't see a need to change unless their health starts to indicate a different arrangement is needed.

I recognise that lot! Glad they all had a good time together!

How terribly sad. Poor Egg just went in the river like he was nothing. Two people who should take some animal ownership classes before ever owning another pet I think.

I do not for one minute believe at least half of that rescue's post. If they have nothing to apologise for then say nothing. Don't engage if you think you are being treated badly by someone who doesn't matter. Hopefully the truth will come out in court or at least some sense of truth will come out. She may not have been the perfect pet owner but she was still the legal owner. I know from experience how hard it is to find a missing pet within your own local area, let alone somewhere you were on holidays at. That council has a lot to answer for.

My stafford is my heart girl and as much as I want to hug and kiss her she cringes when I do so I know she doesn't like it. But she loves other physical touch (inner thigh rubs!) so we do that instead. My shar pei loves kisses and head smooches and will ask for them but if I tried to wrap my arms around her she freaks out and runs. I think if we pay attention to their body language we can usually tell what they like and don't fairly easily. I find if they really like something they will initiate it.

Hey Pers, I hope I didn't miss anything - is Trouble still around and doing ok?

This is a fundamental issue I don't understand. You have 2 blue staffords that appear well cared for. When scanned they have chips but the chips don't match up to the register you search. Soooooo. If you were genuinely in the business of reuniting animals with their loved ones wouldn't you either find the time to do more research on those particular dogs or delegate it to someone else? Surely one of the best parts of the job would be happy endings rather than keeping crying dogs in kennels and then killing them when their time is up? Why would you not put energy into a positive outcome for a dog where possible, particularly where there were signs of the dogs in question being valuable and well cared for rather than dumped strays? Councils and holding shelters need to accept they are far from perfect when it comes to creating a space where it is possible to find your lost animal. I went through this with mum's missing cat - terrible photos and repeated, desperate phone calls for more information unanswered. I felt my council were so unreliable that I went in regularly just in case he was there and they hadn't listed him at all or correctly. From comments on FB regarding these dogs people are saying that exact same thing happened to them - they called and also visited and there was their animal, in some cases ready for sale. Where was the phone call or even a match worthy description and photo online? What is the point in chipping our animals if that information is not used to its full potential? Do councils want to reunite or are they just offering a wandering animal removal service?

Yes she had eaten all her breakfast (a slightly smaller one than usual as I wasn't expecting her to want to eat) but still had a smaller seizure at the vets about 2 hours after her breakfast. I'll definately keep this issue in mind. I have to document things like when and what she ate if/when she has her next one so the vet can see if there is a pattern. The treats they get at night are usually chicken or lamb based and are supposedly natural but I'm going to check all the ingredients to see if there is anything of concern.

If/when I adopt another dog I wouldn't be surprised if it had medical issues or was in its twilight years (or both). Those things don't scare me at all. It is a privilege to provide care for an animal that gives so much of itself to us and who doesn't let it's limitations affect it's living. I love puppies but have always been more attracted to a dog who has already decided who it is going to be.

T she had bloods done to check for anything and everything and nothing odd showed up. She has her evening meal around 5pm and we always check they have eaten the bulk of it. Late night snacks are always given (and factored into their overall diet) because Tempeh gets the vomits in the mornings if she gets over hungry (they are fed by 7am). Both dogs only eat until they are full and will leave food if they don't want anymore so I'm always mindful of late night hunger. We only feed them that early at night because of Tempeh deciding she might die if not fed by then!

Funny you mention about Malcolm being hungry - I decided to offer Stussy breakfast because if her stomach was upset or she still had pain she wouldn't have been interested. But instead she wolfed it all down and licked the bowl and it was only her usual kibble! Same again last night. My vet was also the vet I used with my boy who had epilepsy. She gave Stussy a very thorough going over and did bloods but found no sign of pain or anything obvious that caused the seizure. She's also asked me to monitor her and video tape it if/when it happens again and to write down notes about it and what she ate and did in the hours before. She said we could do an ultrasound of the organs she can't feel and we could do a CT scan of her head to see if anything comes up but she didn't want to do that unless it was essential. Stussy is a pretty calm dog and has been keeping herself quiet since it all happened - no drop and rolls or zoomies. I'll be keeping it that way as much as possible. Thank you for sharing your experiences PK. As I said, I had a boy with epilepsy and it was really challenging. Even though this is different I'm still really worried. I'm not in a good head space for Stussy to suddenly get old and sick on me.

I have a 9.5 year old stafford girl. Over the past few months we have had a couple of incidents of her waking during the night with shallow breathing, tremors and she is unable to be calmed or settled and just keeps walking/pacing/sitting (rather than lying). Each time I have thought she was in some kind of pain. It has quickly passed and she's settled and gone back to sleep. She is not a dog that shows pain or illness easily. She rarely vomits and has only really had one major health scare which resolved with treatment (can't remember the name of it now but it made her skin red, hard and swollen and was something to do with her red blood cells I think). She had a much longer incident on Thursday morning so I took her into the vet as soon as possible that morning. Her temp was elevated and while there she had a similar incident but the vet wasn't available to see it (we were waiting on bloods). I was concerned she was having pancreatitis attacks as the tremors seemed to be from pain, but when I touched her body she didn't flinch in any particular location and her stomach was not tight. The bloods have ruled it out too. My vet thinks it is neurological and she is having seizures. More monitoring needs to be done to determine what testing should be done and then what treatment options might be appropriate. I know there can be a gamut or reasons why a dog might develop seizures but I am interested to hear of others experiences. I have previously had a dog with epilepsy and these turns are nothing like that. Of other concern to me is that she is not the same since Thursday's seizures (if that's what they are). As an example she spent about 3 hours last night lying with her head under the lounge room stairs. No tail wag if I called her name or went and patted her. Just lying there with her eyes open like she was focused on something. She is usually quite social at night and lying on top of me for cuddles on the lounge and up and down if she hears something happening outside. She pretty much slept all Thursday (I had to leave her and work yesterday) and today she is still very quiet and lying in spots she doesn't normally (like on my bed rather than on her bed beside me while I'm at the computer). She's also lying with her legs under her rather than in her dead cockroach position or on her side with her legs splayed everywhere. I know an epileptic fit can take a lot out of a dog so do seizures do the same? Also what tests did your dog have done to diagnose seizures and the cause behind them? Thank you - I hate seeing her like this.

This is making me wonder whether there are some rangers taking pay offs for certain breeds of dog? I mean we are dealing with those 'rare blue staffies' that unsuspecting fools pay a lot of money for! No idea whether these two were desexed but if not that makes them valuable in the wrong hands. I hate to be suspicious of people but in this case there is a distinctly fishy odour. Imagine if rangers were selling dogs for fighting/bait? It makes me sick to think about it. I'm glad the true owner is pursuing this legally because even most normal people can see she owns these dogs and that adequate efforts were not made by certain 'professionals' to ensure she had the opportunity to reclaim them. I hope the book is thrown at the ranger and rescue. I also just wanted to add in relation to Dogslife's comments that most rescues would have returned her dogs that most rescues would've also made complaint to council regarding them not following their own regulations in selling them dogs that legally belonged to someone else as it makes a rescue legally liable. I don't know of any rescue that would have time or money to spare on dealing with a messy situation like that. Oh and I have no idea how to get rid of the empty box below that has mysteriously appeared!

Here is a pic of Stussy lying in her favourite dead cockroach sleeping position. It wouldn't let me add it yesterday with the others. I think she hopes someone will accidentally fall over and rub her inner thighs (her favourite spot). And yes her toenails are a fright. It's an ongoing problem. This is what they look like by week 3 before her nail cut. We've tried to reduce it to every 2 weeks but her anxiety increased and it was undoing all our good work.

Here is my beloved Stussy who is all about relaxation and love.

Tempeh, aka The Doodle Bug. Sometimes not very bright - spends many a summer night trying to chase geckos off the other side of this window. And the second pic is to show off her supermodel legs.

I'll have to get pics off my phone. It dawned on me that I don't take enough snaps of my dawgs, particularly as Stussy will be 10 this year and is going through the usual physical changes (she now has sunglasses). So I've been keeping my phone with me all the time and taking pics of them sleeping in odd ways or of Tempeh trying to eat geckos through the glass window. I also want to take a video clip of Stussy doing her flying 'drop and rolls', which often involve things getting in her way and getting annihilated. She does them by herself all the time (for reasons unknown) but we tried to train her to do them on command (in a safe spot) and she thought we were mad. I want to remember all these silly, little things about them both.

I get a lot of strays on my front lawn. If I can catch them I put them straight in the car and head to the vet for a micro-chip check. I can't have extra dogs at home with mine either so have been lucky - once contact is made with the owners my vet will hold the dog there. I had one recently where the dog had its name and a mobile number on the collar but I couldn't get anyone to return my call so we went to the vet for a micro-chip scan and it turned out the owner was OS on holidays and the dog was being looked after. The vet was able to get secondary contact numbers and the carers came and picked it up next morning. That was very lucky for the dog! I haven't yet had to take an animal to the pound but if there was no micro-chip that would be my next option. If I can't catch it I take pics and post them on lost and found pages for my area. My theory is you have to take the dog to places the owners are likely to look. One of mine once did a runner a few years ago and got driven 20 minutes north to an after hours vet. She had a micro-chip but they were busy and hadn't called me. Luckily I was thinking logically about where they could take a lost dog on a Sunday and called there not long after she arrived (after I'd driven around the neighbourhood and been given bum steers about a loose dog). Some people wouldn't think about looking outside their local area so soon (or maybe ever if they didn't know the after hours hospital existed). Keeping it in your backyard and waiting is not the best option. I've also seen on local lost and found sites people saying "oh if the owners don't turn up I'll take it!". We don't know the owner's circumstances and we don't know the circumstances of the dog being loose. We lost mum's cat last year and despite extensive search efforts for months by two families we only had a couple of strange calls from one lady. I still think he is alive and living very close to where he went missing from, possibly with the lady. Whoever has him has no idea the grief we have gone through losing him on top of losing mum.

The problem is does anyone actually know of a puppy farmer that breeds companion animals that are sound of body and mind? Or one that offers health and genetic history and a guarantee? I've never seen an example of farming techniques used in relation to companion animals that replicated a home environment. I am also yet to even hear about a companion animal farm where the staff to animal ratio ensures socialisation. There is plenty of evidence of the opposite. I don't think dogs and cats will be lost from the public eye if we remove puppy farmers or BYB's. In fact I think there will be plenty of oops litters, animals needing rehoming (for a variety of reasons) and increased registered breeder options perfectly fine for the size of our population and its capacity to own animals. Remember not all the population can or should own a pet (non-pet friendly rentals are increasing, as is the number of abuse and hoarding cases we are hearing about). We need to radically reduce the creation of badly bred animals by people simply wanting to make money and we need to do that for the animals themselves who didn't ask us greedy humans to breed them in the first place. Do we want access to dogs just because we want them or do we actually care about their wellbeing and breed longevity? When I was a kid bitsa's got given away, not sold for thousands of dollars like a must have designer item. Well bred animals had to be sourced from a breeder and were much anticipated and cared for. They had value because we used our money more wisely. I now own a breed that was nearly extinct a couple of decades ago (a shar pei) and this one was surrendered into rescue as a puppy (with 2 siblings and the old mum) because the BYB had another litter due and my girl was getting a bit old to sell easily. That's how much things have changed and will continue to change - from extinction to surplus abandonment in one generation. It is very wrong to me that a person making money from living things can get away with neglecting or dumping them if they decide they no longer have value. Do you think a puppy farmer rehomes old breeding bitches so they can live out their years peacefully? Nope. They don't want anyone to see the condition they have put them in and they are pts. Everything about their approach is wrong for animals.

Asal, the reason I am not keen on selling animals at markets is the same reason I don't want animals sold in pet shops. I want to see the end of puppy farmers and backyard breeders. I also want people to put some thought into buying a pet rather than doing it on impulse because they saw a cute puppy while they were out.

He went missing from Holmview (near Beenleigh) in late July last year. We door knocked and put posters up in both suburbs (in case he was making his way home) several times. Pamphlets in letter boxes. Ads in the community paper. Kept bumping his lost ad on social media. There was not one sighting of him. I then paid a psychic to see what she could see (yes, we were that desperate) and strangely at the same time as she pin pointed a street we got several calls from an older lady in that street about him but she just kept saying she'd seen a poster and was curious but had not seen him. We all think she was lying but had no other details to pursue it. We've all dreamed about him being alive and ok where he is now. I looked on all the lost and founds and pound sites every day for at least four months but nothing. Kept visiting my local pound every week just in case. It was hard to lose him after losing mum, particularly when we thought we'd found him the perfect new home. He's just a tabby cat so nothing special to anyone but mum. His only real identifying feature was a bullseye ring on his side.

Mum's cat is still missing and we all feel he is still alive. If he is happy where he is now then fine but I'm hoping his microchip connects us back to him again at some point in the future so we can get closure on what happened.

Aside from banning animals at markets I hope the RSPCA were immediately called to remove all those animals and treat them for heat stress.

I used to believe this kind of study. Until I got a shar-pei (number 51 on the list!). So intelligent they choose to ignore you because they see no point in what you are asking them to do! I had so many fosters come here and learn our routines by simply watching my dogs that I poo-poo these kinds of studies now. Initially I couldn't get near them to train them but they learnt the important stuff anyway! Free thinking dogs are always a step ahead of their humans and when you have to think like your dog to work out how to work with them I think that shows a high level intelligence of a problem solving/survival/instinctual nature that can't be improved with treats.

I too hope the dust and heat made the tape loosen its stickiness so the dog was able to get it off itself. Otherwise what a terrible way to die for any living thing.