Little Gifts

We have had only one serious incident which was also (surprisingly) a draw and required me to urgently transport bloody dogs to the vet in pj's and no shoes. Both dogs were female and the trigger seems to have been a snake in the yard which got one dog very over excited. The second dog got nosy, a tussle started and the second dog seems to have gotten backed into a corner so had to fight back when she couldn't flee. She did pretty good for a dog who has never shown any ability to defend herself before. The damage was far worse than it should have been simply because I wasn't well and had gone back to bed. Based on the noise I thought they were rough housing so it was all going on for quite a while before I fully woke up and realised the noises were something more sinister. They were exhausted by that time and as soon as they saw me one collapsed on the ground and the other ran in to her crate in my room. I still feel terrible I didn't intervene earlier. We were already doing the nothing in life is free thing so had to stop all over-stimulation from toys, play, (snakes, possums, mice!), visitors and we changed the order we fed and rewarded all the dogs so the two involved in the fight had their status at the bottom of the pack reinforced. We continue to do both these things as the fight was less than a year ago and I don't feel I should ever let my guard down with them again. I think it was six or so months before I felt they were ready to rough play under supervision with each other again but we will continue to keep the stimulation levels down on the one who started the barney. The strangest part of the fight was that once they were both home from surgery in their cones of shame and drains they both wanted to be with each other, like they were sorry it happened. There seemed to be no residual distrust or dislike between them. They'd always been quite good friends and the one who started it cared for and nurtured the younger one from when she first arrived here as a foster pup. She has continued to be a supportive big sister (under our supervision). But it is like she has this crazy switch though when she gets over stimulated and she loses all sensibility. I can see it in her eyes. We've been very lucky

I will keep visiting this thread too to see what rural pounds or small rescue groups are in need and what sizes they want as I have loads of fleece and time to make and send coats at present. I know Logan Pound has put out a call for smalls and mediums so I'll make them a batch. They should be fine though as the message has gone far and wide to residents. I'll also call AWL. I'd like to help out those with more limited options and harsher conditions though if possible.

I desperately wanted a VW caddy but when I was looking they only came in manuals. Wah!

I bought a Hyundai i30 wagon and it is only 25cm longer than my old car but the way it is designed it is like the Tardis inside! We have three dogs (1 large and 2 medium) and can manage three humans, three dogs and all our stuff quite comfortably because of the split back seats. Best car I ever owned, economical to run, well priced to buy. I've been totally happy with it. Oh and I upgraded from a fastback (elongated hatchback) so feel I am sitting nicely up off the ground even though I am not in a four wheel drive. My suggestion is to shortlist the cars you like and go for a test drive in each of them. That's how I discovered the i30 wagon was the one for me. Wagons today are not like wagons of ten years ago.

Cats and kittens usually have lower save rates than dogs and puppies, don't they? Good idea to have a different approach to getting them attention. The set up looks fantastic!

Excellent work! I like the idea of it all having a relaxed and non-time limited approach. A cuppa and a kitty!

This has only happened to me once and I went on instinct. We were at a Vet's Open Day. It was wet and yucky and my sister and I had three dogs with me of different ages. A very aggressive cattle dog escaped it's piddly collar and the owner was not exactly agile enough to catch it. It came straight for us and I immediately shielded my three dogs behind me and took a don't you effing dare stance. Staring hard at the dog and arms down by my sides to push it back if it got too close (I wanted my legs to block access to my dogs so kept them firmly on the ground). I was low growling at it too. It avoided me and switched around the side and behind to my old sbt girl. I was livid and with brute strength grabbed it by the back and flung it away before it connected. Staff were then close enough to catch it and the old man puffed in and put the collar and leash back on. The staff were very good and bundled us inside the clinic to check us all over (no one hurt) and sent him on his way with the dog. The dog is known to them and he came for a freaking free hydrobath! I was so angry! My poor old girl was blind by then so got a shock when this agro dog was in her face and she pooed and peed herself on the spot. I doubt I did the right thing but it was all instinctual and it happened so fast - I just became the angry, protective mum of my brood. The other problem too is that I knew that dog was coming for us whether I liked it or not - no one else was close enough to stop him and he was solely focussed on us. I felt I had to stand my ground.

As we always knew, the rights of people and needs of dogs don't matter to any level of govt, but bleeding money does. If it's not making the council money they don't like it and only then will they think about not doing it. Councils do not give a flying eff about their constituents. If they did the money would be spent on education and enforcement just like Steve has said. BSL has never been about safety.

If you look for the type of pram/buggy that is designed to take your kids and pull behind your bike you shouldn't have problems pushing it because it is designed to carry weight and be made mobile from a dead start. I never used my dogs to pull our doggy pram but I must admit I have always used whoever is on the lead to pull me up hills! I'm not stoopid....

Stussy can't cope with much eye contact. She goes into submissive mode if I try to look at her too much. Tempeh though likes to have conversations with her peeps and will maintain eye contact for ages while voicing her opinions. In fact she does things so you will look at her and she will look back to make sure she has your full attention. She openly watches us a lot too, to see what we are planning or doing while Stussy will steal sneaky glances to keep up to speed.

The decision I made was based on the safety of my old girl when no-one could be home with her. She was still quite active, eating well and very involved with her pack but became an accident waiting to happen and with her dementia and reduced mobility I could not bear to think of her getting stuck somewhere and being stuck like that for hours, waiting till someone found her. She was almost 17 and was having monthly vet check ups given she wasn't the type of dog to show she was suffering. So my only advice is to be honest about the reality of your situation. If you or someone else is generally home with your girl at all times so she can be assisted or rushed to the vet should something happen then continue until you know she is no longer enjoying her day or the risk for her wellbeing becomes too great. It is such a freaking hard decision to make. I had to do it almost three years ago and still internally debate whether I made the decision slightly too soon.

We had a thread about dog prams not long ago for this very issue. I had a pram for an ancient sbt myself who just hated missing out when everyone else was going for a walk but her slowness really messed up the exercise for our other two dogs. So we got her a pram and she started out the walk and when she got tired I'd put her in the pram and we could all continue on. I saw an old lab in a three wheeler type thingy last year. It was the kind of thing you pull behind a bicycle that you might have your kids in. I posted a pic in the other thread but can't lay my hands on the pic now. So there are options regardless of the size of your elderly dog.

Thank you Corrie! And I feel the same about the puppy ones and booster. I've never understood why a dog 'couldn't' develop immunities as it got older.

We have a snooty husky/shep cross (called Wolf, which gets some interesting reactions if ever shouted out in public), a naughty sbt and a quirky shar pei. The only comments we get out in public are about how different they all are. Someone once asked if we couldn't decide what type of dog to get so just got one of each! No-one ever gets frightened of our sbt because she loves people and constantly sports a big smile and a licky tongue at the sight of a potential new friend. Everyone wants to pat the husky/shep though which I always think is strange because she is our guard dog and quite aloof. Maybe people are attracted to her coat? Only pei people want to cuddle our pei girl but she is very fussy on who she will let touch her these days.

I have very little knowledge about vaccinations and do annually when the reminder comes. What do others do? What vacs do you get and how frequently and why? I know when my Stafford girl got quite old the vet said to stop bothering with annual vaccinations so she had none for the last two years. She said she would have enough residual in her system to protect her. I did worry that she would have reduced immunity from her other health issues and if she came into contact with something like parvo that she would not be able to fight it but it never became an issue. I've never really understood how dogs vaccs work compared to say human vaccs that we only have to get once in our life.

Yep that's the book DDD. I can see it from here still on my bookshelf, half finished! I'll have to check out the other one you recommend too.

Based on Bright Star's last post I'm very glad that so many people behind the scenes have recognised the exceptional circumstances surrounding this boy and are making informed decisions based on what is in his best interests now and in the future. It is the best outcome that could be hoped for with any dog in need. I'm still happy this beautiful boy is remaining in Australia and may be the start of something exciting relating to his breed.

I am a great supporter of desexing because it is one way of reducing the cycle of unwanted and abandoned dogs but I'm a great supporter of the continued breeding of quality pure bred dogs. I also respect that desexing is not the preferred option for quite a number of DOLers for a range of reasons, including age and breed - there have been some robust threads on this very topic. What an amazing opportunity this is to have a rare breed of dog here in Australia, in the hands of what seems to be an experienced and responsible new owner. How it got there is a bit of a miracle. If this dog had not ended up in the pound (remember the original owner had been trying to rehome it on Gumtree) I think the comments on here regarding desexing would be quite different. Given the circumstances of this boy being the only one of his kind here in Australia, him being quite young, a large breed AND a working dog, I think it would be appropriate to let him go to his new owner and for his new owner to determine what he would like to do regarding desexing, based on what might be in the best interest of the dog at this point in time and this breed's future here in Australia. It should then be up to this owner to either abide by the agreement or contact the pound/recue group and seek some kind of exemption based on the rare circumstances because this is an unusual, one of a kind situation. For all we know there might be a breeder agreement that he is not to be bred or he may not be a good example of his breed. Maybe the new owner wasn't initially aware of this pound release condition. Maybe the new owner is not even interested in breeding him. Plus he doesn't even have a bitch to breed with in this country. None of this behind the scenes stuff is even our business. We are not the rescue group, pound police and no agreement has even been broken. The poor dog is not even in the new owner's possession yet. I'm just going to focus on the small miracle that is him finding a new and what seems like perfect home.

I got a Panasonic Lumix (10x optical zoom) after I was on holidays in Morocco and saw the pics another traveller was getting compared to what I was getting on my Kodak. The colours and landscape shots were just amazing! I am going to upgrade at some point and get a more recent model of the same camera with a better zoom. I go to a lot of music festivals and concerts and it is a very lightweight camera that gets good distance pics. In the hands of a good photographer the pics would be even better!

Jonah's doing a road trip! I'll be expecting photos!

What fantastic news! I hope it ends up being a perfect match! I must say, I'm not usually a big dog person but that breed is gorgeous to look at and from the FB pics they seem very people orientated for a working dog.

All I was thinking is that the people doing the right thing will just continue to be over monitored and penalised. No-one has any idea exactly how many litters puppy farm and BYB dogs are having now because they don't interact with the current monitoring systems or get regular vet care for their dogs, so they will continue to be back door operations, hiding litters or lying on whatever paperwork they do. No-one probably even knows how many breeding bitches are even on each farm or with each BYB, so again, there will be hiding of litters. Some of these breeding dogs have no paper trail and have never seen a vet. How will that change? The breeders who do the right thing and register their dogs and advertise their litters will be the ones most impacted. After two years of planning it just feels like they are still missing the mark.

Ages ago I started reading an old book about dogs who seem to know unexplained things about their owners, like when their owners are going to arrive home, even if they have an unpredictable schedule. I experienced this house/dog sitting a couple of years back too. The owners went overseas for a week and had to run some errands and drive several hours before making it back home from the airport so their dog could not have known what day or time they would arrive. Yet the afternoon they arrived back in Australia he set himself up in a spot in the yard with a clear view of the entry gate and stayed put until their car pulled into the drive a couple of hours later. All the other dogs had dinner and settled into warm beds for the night except him. He wouldn't be budged or distracted. Anyway, yesterday something very similar happened with our odd girl Tempeh. I wasn't expecting to be home till last night some time but the people I'd been house/dog sitting for came home quite early in the morning instead. So yesterday morning here at my house, Tempeh woke my sister early and was super hyper (ie a pain in the arse). She wouldn't stay still long enough to eat her breakfast (unheard of). My poor sister tried to get her out of the house for half an hour and Tempeh refused to leave, getting both of them worked up. My sister got angry with her because she was by then very late for work so she left Tempeh inside the house. Tempeh has never refused to leave the house before, never been left alone inside the house for any period of time and my sister never gets angry with any of the dogs, but that's how difficult she was being. I got home about an hour after this had all happened and thought it was strange I could hear the other two dogs barking out the back but not Temp. I opened the front door and there she was, as calm as calm can be welcoming me home. I really think she knew. My trip home was about an hour. I hadn't even text my sister to say I was coming home earlier so it's not like my sister had spoken to me on the phone or been running round the house tidying up before I got back. And when my sister got home Temp was very happy to see her, like the morning's events were just a misunderstanding. She even grabbed my sister's hand and brought her to see me. She even spent the night snuggled down in the lounge room with us rather than putting herself to bed after dinner. Has anyone else had an experience like this with their dogs? How do they know?

I remembered another from quite a while back. Bundy (RIP) was not feeling well so I had him in at work with me because I had no doggy sitter that day and had a big meeting at work. My pod mates were all dog lovers so it was no problem. When I went in to the meeting he was fast asleep on his blanket and his leash was attached to my chair. I was giving my presentation to a lot of big bosses and noticed people looking at the glass corridor wall. Below the frosting we could see Bundy walking up the long hallway, looking for me, dragging my chair behind him!

Stussy is my Queen of Embarrassment. I still never got over having a new boyfriend staying over for the first time and Stussy dragged the most disgusting old underwear out of the dirty clothes basket and left it in the hallway where it couldn't be missed. I'd mowed the lawn on a hot summer's day in it. She once found and chewed on a used tampon. NOT MINE!!! She waits until I've done a mega vaccuum and possibly shampooed the carpet to scratch her arse on it. She has a very practical swivel technique she likes to use. And she loves people! She likes them even better if they rub her inner thighs and flings herself open legged at strangers and nudges their hands to her pleasure zone. Embarrassing for everyone involved.