Redsonic

Bruce's owner: How on earth would the owner know that Bruce has never bitten anyone/thing outside his yard? How can the owners know what their roaming dog gets up to? The dog and his owners first came to the council's attention because Bruce was roaming and there were complaints about the dog being aggressive. Council spokesman:

Thanks for the recommendation Pie. I have noticed that if the squeaker is protected (like it is with the Elephant's feet), it is harder for him to locate and destroy. I will give the Dexter Elephant a try!

I just played the original poster's Youtube vid and my Border Terrier leapt out of my lap and ran to look at the toy box! I tried the bad cuz with him once. He destroyed the squeak in less than 2 minutes. It is his mission in life to destroy squeaks - cheapies last less than 20 seconds and I have only found a very few that last more than one session (we take "survivors" away from him to fight another day). Fortunately, he still loves them when they are dead (I call them "the thing that used to squeak"). He has also destroyed the 2 Chuckit toys I have bought for him (both floating fetch toys). We are about to claim the lifetime guarantee on a Bumi and have had a Bionic tug replaced under warranty (the new one quickly failed too). Given he is only 9kg, I don't know how owners of larger dogs cope. And yes, he only gets toys during supervised play!

Thanks for the update. It would seem the police were suspicious from the start. Poor kid must have had a miserable life. Certainly a short one. I hope justice is served in this case.

Story here, with lots more pics: http://sfglobe.com/?id=336 Here he is all recovered

I find it astounding that his lawyer mentioned that it was the fact that the dog had diarrhoea and messed on the carpet that sent the surgeon into a rage (not that we're admitting guilt, of course). If he has that sort of response to a sick dog, it is hard to imagine much (any?) empathy with sick patients. I would have thought a medical professional would have taken a bit of a poo mess in their stride.

WSM, you might want to try these: Available through Therapaw

I think that if dogs had written that article, they would have added: I hate it when humans bath me in smelly shampoo; I hate it when humans engulf themselves/the house in smelly sprays. We rarely think about how sensitive the dog's nose is, and how strong some of the synthetic smells we coat ourselves in must be to them.

This happened in a semi-rural area near the Gold Coast (Mt Tamborine). Poor guy is stable in intensive care. The news says the dogs are going to be euthanased. Sad for everyone Gold Coast Bulletin

I think the fact that she stopped in the left lane (Canada's fast lane) adds to her culpability. A pretty stupid thing to do, but she does deserve some leniency because there was no ill intent. I read a linked article that said the poor wife and mother was following on another bike and watched the whole thing happen in front of her. From the photo, it looked like she went down too, although she could have just dropped her bike in her hurry to get to her loved ones. It happened in daylight (7:20pm but summer days run long up there) and apparently a driver seconds ahead of the motorcycles nearly collided with the car too. The convicted woman had been walking up the highway to return to her car and may have caused a distraction, diverting the drivers' attention away from the road ahead.

I love how Joe O'Brian kept interrupting his commentary on the video with Awwww...!

Yep, I mentioned this attack in the thread about the woman in her 90's. Apparently the attacking dog ("pitbull") is still on the loose (its owner took off with it), and the attacked dog was little. Maybe the dog in the picture was the attacked person's other dog? The TV certainly made out as if the Vizla type dog was a pitbull!

An update to the article about the 92 year old woman states that last night a man has had his hand ripped apart by a pitbull that attacked his dog: Australian Article

I don't know how long it takes to do a tattoo like that one, but I am sure the dog was under anaesthetic unnecessarily long to get it done. Splenectomy is done with the dog on its back; I doubt a vet would let him tattoo the shoulder during the actual surgery (all sorts of sterility issues). So, either the anaesthetic was deliberately prolonged; the tattoo was very quickly done; or the tattooing was performed while the dog was waking up. I don't like it but, as others have said, not a huge welfare issue in the scheme of things.

I'm sure I will find a dead body one day. It seems that every time a body is found it's found by a dog walker around 6am!! ^^^ Wow, so I am not the only one who thinks this! I often walk my dog through degraded bush near a highway and think that it is just the sort of place where "a local walking their dog found the body".

Courier mail article: "A WOMAN has avoided jail after pleading guilty to starving two dogs to death and cruelly laying out food next to their "skin and bones". Debra Louise Pridmore, 46, also pleaded guilty to failing to treat the dogs for severe hookworm before their emancipated bodies were found by the RSPCA in June last year. The Ipswich Magistrates Court heard RSPCA inspectors went to Pridmore's home in Ebbw Vale after a complaint. Documents tendered in court showed the complainant said a dog was in a cage and "just skin and bones". On June 17 two officers found a white American staffordshire bull terrier dead inside a 6m by 3m greenhouse. The court heard the dog's tongue was hanging out of it's mouth, it's eyes were closed and it was cold to touch. The area was littered by faeces and the dog was later found to have been severely anaemic. A report by a vet concluded the dog had been dead for about 24 hours before it was found. In the same greenhouse a small white and tan dog was found in the same condition with a sunken stomach and had been dead for 36 hours. In a disturbing act of "callousness" the court heard fresh food had been laid out next to the dead dogs. "That shows the pure callousness on behalf of the defendant to effectively be feeding dogs she knew were dead," solicitor Bernard Catt, appearing for the RSPCA, told the court. Witnesses told the inspectors the dogs had been kept in the greenhouse since the family moved in three months prior to their death. The court also heard witnesses said the dogs were never allowed outside, they would bark and howl during the day and the dogs hadn't been heard barking for at least five days before they were found dead. Pridmore, who represented herself and is on a carers pension, told the court the dogs were healthy before she moved into the home. The court heard that when Pridmore was interviewed by the RSPCA she said: "I'm not a millionaire I'm not rich, I can't afford vets and (expletive) so nuh I didn't take them to a vet because I couldn't afford it, I just fed them so I didn't know what was going on ... They just lost weight." She was sentenced this morning to two months' imprisonment to be wholly suspended for 18 months. In sentencing Magistrate Donna McCallum said it was a "distressing and disturbing" case. "Animals are as vulnerable as children and our obligation to them are at the highest level." Pridmore was banned from owning dogs for life but after five years can apply to have them again." Sounds like she heard the RSPCA was coming so placed food beside her dead dogs. What a low life. ....oh, and there is nothing funny about this story but I love how Queensland's venerable paper says the dogs are "emancipated"!

Our agility club had a photo session with Santa last year:

I have a slightly different recall problem to those mentioned so far. I have rewarded my dog's recall so much that the command "come" has become a reward in itself (tertiary reward). He hangs back on walks, waiting for me to call him and has discovered the most reliable way to hear the magic word "come" is to run towards other dogs (he has no interest in actually meeting them!). He always comes when called which is great, but I hate rewarding him for running towards other dogs! I am working on a distant sit command, and like Dogmatic's idea of a stop command too. As Simply Grand said, dogs are capable of making really complex associations!

Good link, thanks for that. Just as well we have the ABC to show less sensationalist viewpoints.

This is so untrue! The most productive animals are often the ones which are most stressed and have the poorest environment. Just consider: Caged hens - often "pushed" through the off lay period with artificial lighting and severe cuts to food intake then killed at 18months when their metabolism can't take it any more Feedlot Dairy cows - Produce so much milk that they live on the point of metabolic collapse such that they are prone to every infection that comes their way and show constantly elevated stress hormones Sows in sow stalls - raise more piglets because there is little risk of crushing them when you are unable to turn around. The old "productivity can't be good when welfare is poor" is an argument factory farmers have been using for decades and is patently untrue. Back on topic, I agree with what people have said about more selective breeding and modern training methods reducing waste of working dogs. The main exception to this would be greyhound racing because by definition it is competitive and there will always be winners and losers. No matter how well greyhounds are bred and trained, there will always be a large percentage of dogs which can't earn their keep.

This. A lot of people can't imagine themselves in this guy's position but Sandgrubber has given a good example with a few bad driving decisions which are a little closer to home for some.

Where did the "three days" bit come from? I can only find reference to him eating the dog "a few days" after losing his stuff to the bear.

There have been quite a lot of very critical (harsh?) replies on this thread; many comments on how stupid this guy was to take such a risk and be so unprepared. I think people's attitudes to risk vary widely and, like it or not, our dogs are along for the ride. Some dogs have owners who would never dream of driving them around without a seatbelt (me!) or letting them off leash. Other dogs have humans who take them canyoning or riding on the tank of their motorbike. Perhaps this dog was unlucky to have such a risk taker as an owner but I bet he had huge fun doing wilderness treks with his human. Yes, the guy was really unprepared and made some really bad decisions to get himself and his dog into this situation, but would you be so upset and angry about it if it happened to your loved one, or would you forgive him? What if it was your husband/son/brother/father who got in this situation and ate the dog? Would you rather have your loved one back, knowing he had been stupid and the dog had paid the price, or lose them both, never knowing what had happened to them? I can't say whether I would kill my own dog in this situation (I really doubt I could) but I would certainly consider eating him once dead, and I hope that my loved ones (and the DOL community!) would forgive the desperate act. This guy has to live with his harmful actions/decisions for the rest of his life and probably doesn't need strangers online to make him feel hugely guilty.

How Sad Article Here Trekker Marco Lavoie eats his beloved pet dog to survive days after it saved him from bear attack NOVEMBER 03, 2013 A man was forced to eat his beloved german shepherd after being trapped in the Canadian wilderness. Source: AFP A TREKKER who was stranded in a remote region of Canada killed and ate his beloved German Shepherd just days after the dog had saved him from a bear. Marc Lavoie’s three-month climbing trip in the Canadian outback turned to disaster when a bear attacked his camp on the banks of the Nottaway River, around 800km northwest of Montreal. Mr Lavoie escaped with his life when his German shepherd chased it away - but not before the bear had destroyed his canoe and food supply. Risking starvation Mr Lavoie made the heart-breaking decision to kill the dog just a few days later. He hit the animal with a rock and ate its meat. Mr Lavoie was rescued this week after three months in the deep wilderness. By the time he was airlifted out the outdoorsman was suffering from hypothermia and dehydration and had lost about 40 kilograms, the Toronto Sun reported. Survival experts said the decision to kill the dog may have saved his life. "He survived because he made good decisions. Eating his dog was one of them," Andre Francois Bourbeau, a survival expert, told the paper. Even so, locals said they had warned the outdoorsman against trekking the river alone. Andre Diamond, a Waswanipi Cree who lives on an island at the mouth of the river, said: “He said it didn't scare him, but it's not a river to travel alone. Other adventurers have gone there over 20, 30 years and never came back.” The Nottaway River is a notoriously dangerous place to travel with temperatures dropping below freezing, and potentially deadly currents. Mr Lavoie is in hospital in a serious condition.