Salukifan

Dogs ACT has been approached by the Canberra please let us Chronicle, looking for a dog owner who would be willing to be interviewed and have a photo at the new dog park opening at O’Connor. If there’s anyone who can help out, could they let me know here and I’ll pass over the journalist’s contact details.

RSPCA here never supported it. RSPCA nationally don't support it now. Neither do the AVA. Neither do the ANKC. Seems to me that the best way forward is to start mustering opposition from the key organisations, rather than scaring the shite out of individual pet owners. We also need intel as to what breeds might be being "considered".

I'll just point out that the ACT has no breed specific legislation. Its not the whole country that's hysterical on the issue.

That's no done deal. The sky is not falling....at least not yet. It certainly bears watching but don't forget that you've got at least three members of the Taskforce who are on paper as being opposed to BSL. It won't be a steamroller job. Panic wont help anyone. Neither will the suggestion that all dog breeds are at equally at risk. This calls for cool heads and careful strategy, not headless chicken impressions. Have we got a timeframe for the group to hand down the findings of its considerations? Seems to me that the suggestion that there is an immediate threat to all dogs and owners is overcooking this considerably. Scaremongering really won't help here

That would be great. It's always good to hear how things progress.

You need to call 1800BorrowADOLersSighthound. My backyard is a complete no fly zone. If it flies, it dies. Nothing comes down to dog height.

OMG - Scary +++++ Glad she is starting to feel better. Dodger has chested my back porch (misjudged the jump) done a full mid air somersault and crashed onto the concrete on his back. While FHRP and I were still he got up, shook himself off and continued the zoomie. Dems Whippets are tough I tell you!

21 year old toy poodle. She was deaf, blind and pretty bald but quite sprightly still. Someone I know recently lost their 20 year old mini poodle. He was nearly blind.

This is the same Aidan I recommended for you in your introduction thread. :)

Not putting dog down? Okaaaay Not getting help to deal with the problem? Crazy.

In all honesty, I am a nervous wreck at a dog park or off leash area envisaging what can happen and trying to assess each dog and owner and is not a place that remotely presents a relaxing atmosphere for me at all. We have a few illegally off leash dogs at times at our local park if I see any walking my dogs on leash, I turn up the street before the park to avoid them and for some reason the one's off leash are the one's the owners can least control as a general rule of thumb. So Which kind of dog park person are you Amax?

Agree, but I'd wait for K9Pro to see and evaluate the dog before notifying. It's possible there's nothing "wrong" with the dog's temperament. Some folk are talking like breeding a dominant bitch is "wrong". I don't see it that way, especially if the dominance is expressed only with other dogs. Neither are breeding high prey drive or dogs that are too much dog for dog parks and that won't tolerate foolish behaviour from other dogs. What's wrong with a confident dog that sees itself as higher up the pecking order than other dogs? Maybe, what this bitch needs is different management. That's where K9Pro steps in. You know better than me but people seem to have this image of Labradors as tolerant teddy bears where other dogs are concerned - that doesn't fit some of the dogs I know and in particular the ones bred to work. That doesn't mean that there's anything "wrong" with their temperament. But they need to be managed and channelled in the right direction. Dogs like this often have a pretty good work ethic! I think perhaps EB has more dog than she originally thought she had. Maybe this dog needs to be channelled towards obedience or RATG. But K9Pro will analyse and advise. This dog, when grabbed by her owner in the midst of attacking the other dog, dropped the other dog and did not, while in an extremely high state of arousal, aggress towards EB. That's pretty good temperament as towards people as far as I'm concerned. Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

Same here

Madness. Sheer madness.

Hoping for good news this morning. No change WILL be good news if that's how things are going

People could say the same thing about so many other topics in "General Dog Discussion". There are so many other topics that keep getting rehashed and re-asked rather than doing a search to see if there has been something already on it. Then there is the "OMG a dog bit someone" threads or the BYB threads. If it doesn't interest you - you don't have to open it. I doubt there are that there are so many other topics in General Discussion where those of legal bent think "gee if this keeps up, Troy might be facing a law suit". I think that's the point you're trying to make Raz? N'est-ce pas?

I dream of a world in which there are private dog parks where you can book time and have space to yourself. Or maybe I should just use a padlock.

My Whippets can run at 50kph or thereabouts and have strong prey drive. Common sense alone would suggest that running these dogs with frail, old or unknown small dogs is risky. And yet, people do. When asked to wait 5 minutes until we'd left the paddock at my dog club a while back, what did the owner of the toy breed do? Yep, yelled "it'll be right" and opened the gate to let her dog in. Thank GOD for recall training. End of free running for my dogs, leads on and all so her little dog could stand at her feet for a while. Then there was the person who, confronted with a paddock full of about a dozen dogs (half entire males) and again asked to wait until we'd cleared it, opened the gate and let her bitch in... then got all upset when the boys mobbed her. I won't talk about the aggression incidents or the vet bills. Or my broken ankle Then there was the time I had to leap the fence and rescue a screaming small dog being mugged by larger ones while its owner froze and no one else did a damned thing I've tried the cooperative approach and it didn't work. Now I just stay clear.

Glad you managed to work through the pain. :) Au contraire. I know enough about canine behaviour not to put my bag anywhere near where offflead dogs can visit it . Marking is normal canine behaviour. Why tempt fate? My point applies to all children. Even grown adults can be sent flying by dogs Children aren't good at situating behaviours. They assume all dogs are like theirs. That's a danger too Hopefully the more knowledgable rescues practice controlled socialsation techniques and don't use the public's dogs as guinea pigs to see how the fosters react at dog parks. Hopefully. No, its not the fault of blind or timid dogs if other dogs can't read the warning gear . But dogs don't read. It's unsafe for such dogs to be offlead around dogs running, playing etc and to expect every other dog park user to cater for such a dog is a pipe dream . They'll be knocked over or overwhelmed and anyone who takes such a dog to an offlead area when its populated is a damn fool in my opinion. Ditto for baby puppies and geriatric dogs. Most dog parks have been put together by people who know bugger all about dogs. I know this because I served on the ACT consultative group that advised the builders of the local parks - and they'd built plenty elsewhere. Fixed equipment is a crash hazard and chairs encourage owners to sit when they should be walking and closer to where their dogs are. Don't even get me started on the dangers posed by fixed agility equipment and its use by owners who have no idea about what they're doing. Even division of parks into big dog and small dog areas is something that has tended to happen at the request of owners and often after hard lessons have been learned. As I said, its all about perspective. Talk to knowledgeable people about territorial pack behaviour, about hyper arousal, about triggering dogs into pack or prey drive etc and you'll start to realise why so many of us save visits to dog areas for when they are vacant. And place my dogs at risk or get my head punched in by someone who wants the dogs to sort it out? No thanks. And I won't whine about it because no matter how much I'd like it to be different it ain't going to happen. I've adjusted and so do most others. My first post in this thread was that people really shouldn't be surprised by idiotic or ignorant behaviour by dog park users. Goes with the territory. Accept it or opt out. I've chosen the latter.

Don't forget that you don't have to get the dog to open their mouth - just draw the lips up from the teeth.

Understands, approves, administers. :)

Acceptable to whom? A casual walk past my local dog park suggests that dogs tear arsing around with no heed to their owners is perfectly acceptable to the majority of park occupants. Forget council's version of acceptable and think of what most normal people would consider as acceptable and sensible. That doesn't include an unmonitored dog jumping up on a child, rummaging in your bag, peeing on your bag, madly humping your dog or you, human crotch sniffing, pooping all over the place, chewing on the offleash furniture (wooden chairs), trying to rush out the gate, rushing at other dogs trying to enter the park, rushing at dogs who might be wearing 'in training' or other warning gear, leaving the park without a leash or human. If an owner isn't close by to see their dog then all this is possible. Basic and acceptable behaviour designed to keep everyone safe and enjoying their outing. Even picking up your own dog poo is the most basic common courtesy but if you aren't looking then you wont know your dog has even done one. And if you aren't even close by no-one else will know to point it out to you. And now we're in the realm of personal opinion as to what is "normal' and "sensible" when it comes to canine behaviour. Your average "normal" person knows bugger all about canine behaviour. It pays to keep that in mind. In my opinion, small children shouldnt' be in offlead areas without very close supervision, anything that's put within a dog's reach is fair game for inspection and marking, offlead areas are not training areas, no dog requiring warning gear or wearing a harness should BE in an offlead area and no fixed furniture should be in one either.The ideal that offleash areas can be safely utilised by all people and all dogs is simply that - an ideal. I've come to terms with it. I use them when no strange dogs are present and IMO that's what's required to keep my dogs safe. Tut tutting over what others do won't change a thing. I think you have to accept that you'll come across the odd idiot and that unless you've got a dog that can deal with a fair range of canine behaviours from dogs of all sizes, you stay out when others are using.

Council regulations also specify that dogs are to be registered (about 50% are), vaccinated (a similar proportion are), walked on leash outside of approved areas and picked up after. Those last two I see flaunted most weeks. You can wave Council regs at dog owners all you like but the reality is that many dog owners don't give a toss. At the dog park, its majority rule and the majority appear to believe that anything goes. I'd not rely on others obeying council regs for my dog's safety.

Breathe deep. You beating yourself up won't help your dog now. When you are calmer, your neighbour needs to understand that his failure to attend to his pup's sickness has placed your dogs are risk AND, very importantly, any pup brought into his yard or yours for the next 12 months.