Salukifan

My only concern would be that the family understood the breed and still wanted it. Lots of good information here. But if they think Maremma are big white Golden Retrievers, they need to rethink their choice.

Do they? They are a territorial pack animal. Those bred to live in large social groups might be accustomed to and happiest with company but they wouldn't generally find it with strange dogs. You are your dog's "pack". He can get his need for companionship from you. Dog parks are the product of a lot of odd ideas about how dogs think. The number of incidents that occur in them is testament to that. Use them if you wish but don't think for a moment that your dog 'needs' to go to one to be happy. You've got a sledding breed. Take up sledding. In addition to giving him the hard physical exercise he was bred for, you may get a chance to see him race in a team - all the sociallisation a Husky could ever ask for!

How old is your "pup"? How good is your dog's recall? Adding this to give you some common traps to avoid. My view is to get the hell away from the gate as quick as you can and let your dog offlead. If you cannot recall your dog or you don't know how he will react to tiny dogs (noting that Huskies often have high prey drive) pick a quiet time to visit.

ACT Companion Dog Club has some tracking people and Raelene Koerber teaches nosework.

How difficult does she find it to get down the stairs?

So very sorry to read this. A sudden loss must be very hard to bear. RIP Maisie.

Avoid, avoid, avoid. Warn FB friends that you don't want to see animal abuse images and unfriend them if they keep it up. There are a lot of dreadful things happening in the world and you have to take care of yourself. Insulate yourself from such stuff. Animal abuse stories on TV are a channel changer for me.

Shellbell: I suggest you find out if it actually has the bone because my first thoughts looking at this diet are that it's potentially calcium deficient. If it is minced with offal, I'm guessing this is a 'pet mince'? I recommend you switch to human grade meats and feed the offal yourself. Keep the meat on the bone. There are many threads here on raw feeding and plenty of folk who do it but I suggest you take it back to basics. Feed lots of meat on the bone - raw chicken wings and necks, something like VAN with meat or make or buy a balanced meat veggie mix. Cut out the extras initially. A simpler diet will help you figure out why he's getting the runs. What did you add in the last 4 days? You could add some kibble but feed it only every other meal and keep the RMBs up. Personally, I avoid feeding mince unless its human grade.

You could consider a muzzle....

Words fail me. That poor man.

He can eat chicken wings and necks straight out of a bowl. The best bones for his diet are the ones he can eat completely. If you have not crate trained him, I'd suggest you do it. In addition to giving you a safe way of separating dog and child, he can be given recreational bones to eat in his crate and you can simply wash the bedding afterwards.

Have you contacted his breeder?

If he is having runny poo, I'd question the need to add more fibre to his diet in the form of pumpkin or anything else. You want less gut stimulation, not more. I'd not be eating bran if I had the runs :laugh: He derives no nutritional benefit from pumpkin. I"d be stopping that and perhaps trying something like a chicken wing. Bone firms up poos better than anything I've seen. Stress can loosen things up too - how's he coping these days?

You know what? I have never done that. I've seen some of the things my dog's eat and I figure their digestive systems can handle a sudden change of diet.

Focus on this part of the law: Did the child have an excuse? I think he was going to knock on the front door and ask if his brother was there. No suggestion he was going to break in and knock off the Play Station.

Focus on this part of the law:

There will be a definition for locked at law which will be something like providing a disengagement mechanism is activated to open the gate, it will be considered locked by definition and unlocking the gate for entry without permission will be unlawful entry or something to that effect. Unlawful means "trespassing". The law on trepass is long and voluminous. A person who can open a gate and walk to your front door is not trespassing and does not, in the absence of any prohibition to enter, require your permission to walk to your front door.

Make that "some dogs" please. Some dogs are socialised to understand that strangers and children are not "targets". Others have been bred with lower levels of territorial drive, with higher triggers to aggress and high levels of bite inhibition. And others, including one of the 'breeds' supposedly involved in this attack have been selectively bred for generations to show no aggression to humans whatsoever. So, what went wrong here? You know the answer as well as I do and it comes down to humans, not dogs. The usual factors, questionable breeding, of failure to socialise, train and contain will no doubt be at work.

In this case, in the maiming of a child and the death of two dogs. Not sure about you but I'd do a fair bit to prevent that result if I could. Prevention sure beats the hell out of cure and a padlock sure beats a sign. Don't give people the option of opening the gate and entering. Put your dogs behind locked gates.

You might find this article helpful.

My personal view is that your dog should be neither visible, nor accessible from the front of the house. Solves the 'safe passage' issue neatly. We have no choice here in the ACT. We cannot have front fences. Fair enough. I am not looking for an argument. I wasn't aware that in the ACT you didn't have front fences. Royal pain in the butt in many ways but even if we did have front fences, I'd still confine the dogs to the rear of the property. I want the dogs separated from the driveway at all times. And I'd be able to have a decent front garden

My personal view is that your dog should be neither visible, nor accessible from the front of the house. Solves the 'safe passage' issue neatly. We have no choice here in the ACT. We cannot have front fences.

Yep, in furious agreement with that. But a padlock is a better response to the 'keep out' issue than a sign. I do not own dogs like that either but a padlock stands between them and anyone who wishes to enter my back yard.

I suppose the key question then is "is a 10 year old child entering a property without invitation, 'sufficient provocation' to justify what these dogs were able to do". For many people in the community, the answer is "no". Well in my current thought process (which may change with time and experience) I guess I'm not within that part of the community. You, and other dog owners who think that a dog inflicting serious injuries in the mere defence of property (as opposed to the safety of its owner) is acceptable. All I can say is for anyone who wishes to have a dog like this, do the dog and the wider public a favour and keep it behind padlocked gates. Tragedies like this happen because people fail to socialise, train and/or contain their dogs. It will be the dogs that pay, each and every time something like this happens. You owe it to your dog to protect it. if you care for your dog, it's actually far more important that you do that for your dog than that your dog protect you. If you want your house protected, buy a security system. Don't allow dogs of questionable stability to maim members of the community who do no more than exercise poor judgment.

I suppose the key question then is "is a 10 year old child entering a property without invitation, 'sufficient provocation' to justify what these dogs were able to do". For many people in the community, the answer is a flat "no". No amount of justifying this as "normal canine" behaviour (which in my opinion is a questionable statement) or suggesting that children shouldn't do things like this will justify to the wider community the extent of the injuries this boy received. And dog owners need to grasp that nettle and make damn sure that their dogs are not in a position to do this. I can only thank God that the dogs' owner was home and managed to intervene to stop the attack. The outcome could have been far worse.