"one Nation Under Dog"

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//"The show ring has been horribly detrimental to dog breeding and I'm glad the breeds I like are working breeds and get breed because they are fit for purpose rather than the froggy GSDs. Working lines of GSDs are lovely with their straight backs, I just wish that would be classed as the "correct" form for them rather than the frogs."//


Yes, i'm so stoked to find a like mind about show rings are not much about dog health or function!!!! i so hear you and understand your words!! Luckily, i do believe, the standard for slopey GSD hips is being corrected back to a more normal dog hip now....but a lot of damage was done...



Even some working breeds are getting messed up by showrings, too, and by whatever is the latest fad for the breeds, er, i mean "standard" for that breed.:rolleyes:
The Border Collie association fought for decades to keep border collies from being "recognized" by the AKC:cautious: ............but, they lost in the late 90s,:oops:
and the AKC began doling out AKC papers for border collies:eek::cry::mad::cautious: ...and set up fads, er, i mean "standards" for the sizes, angles, colors, coats, shapes, etc, for border collies. NOT A WORD about their herding ability, nope.
just the LOOK they want in a border collie.

it will be the ruin of the breed.



For centuries or longer, BCs were bred for their ability, not their look. BCs come in several body types, ("mountain" BCs vs, field BCs, etc there were several historical lines and each was slightly different shape) lots of coat types, etc,
but they all shared that urge to herd, that drive, that energy....that mind.

but now, breeders can begin cranking out BCs with juuuust the right angle to his nose, :rolleyes: juuuust the right proportion of his back to his legs, juuuust the right type of coat, etc etc. and sell them for $1,000s.....THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE now.....
another drawback is, dog fans sitting at home seeing a perfectly primped BC walk by on tv, will point and say, "good looking dog, i want one of those!" and end up with a shredded sofa, and it's one more BC in the dog pound....
it might have been better when BCs were not being paraded around in the show ring.

I remember that first time a BC was evvvvvvvver in the show ring, first time ever. We sat and laughed, cuz all the other dogs were sitting nicely as the judge walked down the row, but the BC was jumping all around, being a real handful, pulling all over, "lets' go!" and stuff!!:ROFLMAO: We cheered at that BC, "yes! show 'em! show em what a BC is like! Act all up, so ppl wont' want you for a sofa pet!"
(NOT that a BC can't be trained to sit calmly on cue, but, we CHEERED that BC acting up in the show ring! no way to know how long he'd sat on some table getting primped for his debut...)



The BC association is so so honked off about the AKC finally recognizing border collies, they refuse to allow any AKC registered BCs to participate in their herding competitions.:ROFLMAO:

(i might have the exact name of the BC club wrong, sorry).
 

Mr-Remington

Experienced Member
:eek::cry::mad::sick:
are there no anti-cruelty laws there to protect the dogs? so others can call the cops?
just horrible...
I love the quote section on homepage of DTA, and i've seen several going by which make a point something about you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat their animals....

just horrible...in USA there are animal abusers here, too, yes, there are....i don't think i'd call it "common" really, but, it's not unheard of. Idiots can be anywhere....
I'm not sure if there are any laws, but I know most people don't get involved because they fear for themselves. I read that its also just something people have gotten use to seeing.

The USA has alot of animal abusers, Animal planet has quiet a few shows for them. It's what has fueled my love and passion for helping animals.
 

Dogster

Honored Member
To 648117,
it is so cool this website is so international, cuz it's hard for me to even picture the set up New Zealand has, as it seems so opposite of what USA has, (and many other countries as well.) It sounds like New Zealand is doing something right, that they have so few dogs in their dog pounds.:eek:

I do get impression, now and then, that USA seems to be leading the world with dog overpopulation crisis. That is just my own guess. I'm not sure if this is cuz we are large sized country, so our chances of having more problems is increased, or if it is cuz americans are such huge dog lovers and just unaware of the crisis, or what.
but, i often get impression that USA is #1 for dog overpopulation crisis.....:oops:
Canada is also right up there. :oops: There are many puppy mills in Canada, probably not as many as in the US, but we too have an overpopulation of dogs.:(

And it's horrible what happens in Mexico and Puerto Rico :cry: WHO WOULD DO THAT?!?!?!?
 

648117

Honored Member
I think cats are way more of a problem in New Zealand then dogs are. There are so many cats at the SPCA and so many strays.

Espceially around christmas, it's summer so there are a lot of kittens being born and people buy them for presents (and I guess some people probably breed with the idea of easily selling them as presents but then can't find buyers because there are just so many kittens around) so the SPCA over flows with cats.

One christmas we had a stray turn up at our door (she had had kittens, her nipples were up, but there was no milk). We rang the SPCA and they said that if we took her to the SPCA she would be put down because they had too many cats already.
So even though we already had three cats, we kept her (after trying to find her home and no one claiming her). She's a silver tabby called Grace and when people see her they always say they can't understand how she was a stray :rolleyes:

I guess because kittens are so abundant and are not so much work (compared to puppies) people don't see the point of adopting an adult cat.

Also, the city council has a thing where you can go on a list to get your dog or cat neutered for free. I think sometimes there is a bit of a wait (like, up to a year, so if you got on the list as soon as you got the puppy/kitten it would be alright) but that probably helps keep the population down. And I don't think there are any restrictions on who can go on the list.

Also, all dogs (except working dogs, I think) have to be regestered every year in July (and wear their registration tag) and if you want more than one dog you have to get a kennel license (there is still probably an upper limit for the number of dogs you can have though) which involves a property check, getting signatures from the neighbours and a one-off fee.
All puppies have to be microchipped before they are registered for the first time.

Your yearly registration fee is halved if the dog in neutered and you can get some more taken off the fee if you haven't had any complaints about your dog and it hasn't been impounded for two years and you have a property check.

I think most of these rules are different for working dogs (ie, farm dogs)
But, all this helps keep the numbers of dogs down and encourages good dog ownership (although some people are still not good owners)

Doesn't the USA have any rules like these?
 

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//"Also, the city council has a thing where you can go on a list to get your dog or cat neutered for free. "//

i LOVE this idea!! I don't think we have that in USA, (maybe a few here or there, but not too common so far as i know) but, in USA, there are a few low cost spay and neuter events. There was one i *almost* signed up for, to neuter Buddy, it involved putting dog on a bus, in a cage, at a bus station,
a special "dog bus" full of dogs in cages,
and then, at end of day, you'd go collect the dog back from the bus station....very very cheap, and at the time, we were so so broke, i almost considered it,
but, i could not do it. Not for Buddy especially. whole idea made me worried. so we paid 4 times as much to have our local vet neuter him.

//"Doesn't the USA have any rules like these?"//

In USA, so far as i know, the rules concerning dogs, etc, vary from one state to another,
and from one town to another.
In my town, all dogs have to wear their city registration tag, but most dogs don't. The fees and some rules vary if your dog has ever been labelled "dangerous".
It is only $3, and has to be renewed each year. My dog doesn't wear his tag usually, instead, he wears a tag with his address and phone number. When he wears BOTH tags, it makes too much noise, clinking around, even when i put rubber 'frames' on the metal tags to soften the clinking noise.
His city registration tag has some numbers on it, but would be of no use to someone finding Buddy wandering around at 8pm.:oops: Even if someone found Buddy wandering around during the office hours of the courthouse, where we register dogs,
it'd probably take hours:rolleyes: (days?) for that super busy and somewhat inefficient courthouse to find the number and give the person my name to return Buddy to me.

My town has a limit of 6 animals total (cats, dogs, etc) per house inside of city limits. In USA, there would rarely be a property check unless there were complaints, cuz our humane societies are so overwhelmed/understaffed, etc.

Probably each town or county/district would have different law on how many animals can be in one house. Outside of city limits has different laws and rules for animals. My area has big Amish communities out in the farm areas, and they are huge into puppy mills. The Amish are fascinated that people will give them tons of money for a dog IF they can also give a "paper" with the dog.:eek: If one has enough dogs, one can make a serious amount of money selling purebred dogs with papers.
Amish are not known for their focus on animal welfare, btw.

The amish here, drive into town, on their horse and buggies, selling baskets full of purebred puppies of all types, just going door to door with the puppies or stopping on corners, or out in front of stores, selling puppies by the bucketful.

puppies in baskets2.jpg


I've seen Amish set up tables covered with wooden apple buckets, with "Golden Retriever" on one bucket, and little puppy heads all sticking out of it, and other buckets with labelled for other breeds, "Border collle", "Labradors" etc etc, with more puppies sticking out of the top of those buckets. Lots of breeds, all divided up into different apple baskets....with labels on each basket...

Literally BUCKETs of dogs....when one calls the humane society, they say there is nothing can be done, that THAT is not proof of a puppy mill.....!!

The Amish also advertise in local papers "AKC registered __(fill in whatever breed)___breed dogs". Since Amish religion forbids them from using phones, they usually have a middle man take phonecall and arrange meetings.
I hear the parent dogs are not treated well, typical puppy mill style, but, somehow, the amish seem to get a pass on how they treat animals..only rarely will the amish get busted for their barns full of puppy mills, but, since Amish live in communities where outsiders not allowed, it's hard to turn them in.

Speaking of rules for dogs-----------
My own neighborhood council, has their OWN little set of laws, and a year or so ago, they set up a law, that there is now a $500 fine :eek: for an offleash dog. Mind you, not a dog causing problems, just being offleash, is $500 fine!!! I still walk Buddy offleash here and there, if it is before the twilight, <---when the bunnies all come out.

i always leash up Buddy for all creatures, dogs, cats, whatever. Even humans, just so human feels happy and safe, although Buddy is totally fine to humans.

I don't think we have mandatory microchip law in USA, but, maybe some towns do have that.
I don't know much about laws for cats...but yeah,
it is the same here, i do think our cat overpopulation problem is probably even worse than our dog overpopulation problem, i'm not sure, but, that sounds right.
 

Dogster

Honored Member
Yeah, we also have a $500 fine for letting dogs off leash.:eek: It annoys me, because we don't have that many dog parks here, either.:cautious: We have to pay more money for a city dog tag, it also gets renewed every year.

I heard of free spay and neuter programs, I think it was for street dogs in Mexico...
 

Dogster

Honored Member
Ummm, sort of. All the shelters microchip, and the vet recommends it (Shivon is microchipped) but there are dogs that aren't.:cautious: I'm not sure..... But they SHOULD BE.(y)
 

648117

Honored Member
The free neutering isn't done on a bus here. It gets done at the normal vets. If we had gone on the list with Holly she probably would have been done at our usual vets. We just didn't want to wait for up to a year because we didn't want her to go on heat because it would just be difficult and might upset Paris, so we just paid (we have actually paid for all our pets, don't want to risk an unwanted pregnancy). I don't know if other city councils in New Zealand do this.

The microchipping and registration is the law for all of New Zealand.

The microchipping law was only made a few years ago (maybe 5 years ago?) so older dogs arn't microchipped (Paris isn't) if they were over a certain age when the law was made. They made the law in response to dog attacks on children (although I don't really see how this prevents attacks, it just makes it easier to identify the dog after it has attacked).

People didn't really like that law at first, as it seemed to punish good owners and made them have to pay even more to keep their dog legal, they also made leash laws more strict and banned some breeds of dog (eg red nosed pitbulls and some other ones).
The good result was they made more fenced-in dog parks. There used to be none before they changed the laws and now just in the city I live in there are at least five (that might not seem like many in the USA, but I live in a small city, the dog parks are never very full) and they each are grass and have one or two woodchip areas with agility equipment (wooden jumps and weave poles, dog walk, concrete tunnel, tire jump).
They have rules for dangerous dogs here (probably muzzled in public, not allowed off leash or something), I just don't know exactly what they are as I have not owned a dangerous dog. And different rules for working dogs.

If the pound picks up a stray dog they can check the microchip straight away, even if the dog doesn't have its registration tag on they can still find out who the dog is (although the owner still has to claim the dog at the pound) and because every dog is microchipped using the same system it doesn't matter where in New Zealand the dog is. Or you can take the dog to the vets and they will check the microchip and call the owner (without the dog going to the pound).


This year we have to pay (in NZ dollars) $44 each for Paris and Holly's registration (so $88 in total and it gets doubled if we haven't paid by the end of July). But keep in mind they are both neutered and we have the "good dog" thing and we got the kennel licence years ago and we have already gotten Holly microchipped. So it isn't so cheap here.
The tags just have numbers on them (like yours do) and each year is a different colour so it's easy to tell if a dog has been registered for that year (currently they are yellow, next they will be blue) and they remind you to register your dog by having radio ads and sending out letters.

So I guess in NZ they can afford to do property checks, look after the dog parks etc because you pay for it when you register your dogs, and the pound and SPCA are not so over loaded (you get a property check before you can adopt a dog too :LOL:)

Maybe if you were adopting a dog, getting a kennel licence and getting the "good dog" thing you might only need one property check :LOL: but maybe not :ROFLMAO:
 

Mr-Remington

Experienced Member
In my city they will randomly, but very rarely, do a property check. They usually do it just to see that they are licensed. They will give you a warning and you never see them again. The only reason I know this is because they randomly pop in on my sister and her two dogs. Here you also have to have your animals microchipped. If you don't its a large fine. I haven't and will not microchip my dog do to my religious beliefs. And I've never been told anything, nor has my family. We can have up to four dogs before needing a kennel licence, and its rare you see anyone with more then two. Out here they are slowly getting more strict about owning dogs, but like tigerlily said with how overcrowded the shelters are and understaffed they are its hard for them to keep track of every single person and their animals.
 

sara

Moderator
Staff member
Canada is similar to the US, all provinces have different laws, and all cities and towns have different by-laws. Here we have mandatory licencing by-laws, but no microchipping laws, though that may soon change. (I think they're going to introduce it for cats first :) ) There are leash laws in the cities and towns, enforced by their own by-laws, every town makes their own laws and fees. In Red Deer, the licencing fee is $30 for a neutered animal, $50 for an intact. You may have 3 dogs. If your dog gets labeled dangerous, you have serious problems. In Penhold (where I live) which is 10 km south of Red Deer, licencing fees are $10 no matter the "reproductive status" and you may have 6 (which is a ridiculous number for in town!) and as far as I know, we dont have a dangerous dog by-law, except that if your dog bites someone, it'll likely be taken and euth'd on a 2 strike rule. Oliver's much safer here, as in RD if he were to even bark, lunge or snap at someone, he could be labeled dangerous.

I've never bought a dog. and my family hasn't since I've been alive. All of our dogs were rescues, rehomes or strays. My sister bought a Westie, but I spent tons of time researching breeders, and Lauren bought from a reputable breeder who does all necessary health tests and shows and is doing her best to breed out the behavioural, allergy and skin problems rampant in the breed. She is also involved in the breed rescue, and is very active in the Westie Club of Canada. The person who runs the Westie Club of Canada's breed rescue in western Canada even has 2 of Annabelle's relatives :) They also have a rescue from the Ottawa SPCA, and Lauren will never buy another puppy, but she wanted a puppy for her first dog, and she wanted a Westie, and with the extreme health issues in the breed, she wasn't going to get a puppy from un-health tested stock (which is what ends up in rescue). She's over the puppy thing though, and doesn't ever want another puppy LOL.

I will, one day, buy an Irish Terrier. I adore the breed, but they are extremely rare, and there are only 20-30 IT's on petfinder at any given time (and most of those are not even IT's, the shelters just put IT, but I dont think they even know what an IT is! LOL) But when I do it will be from health tested parents (though there aren't any recommended health tests for the breed, as it's an extremely healthy breed) but alot of breeders score hips and do thyroid tests anyway. But then, I figure I'm doing my part. I have had 7 dogs in my life, and not one of them was bought :) and 5 of them are "unadoptable" one was a stray we took in off the street, and one was my Mom's co-worker's who bought a Springer Spaniel x Cocker when she worked full time, not realizing the sheer ENERGY the dog had... she gave up on her at 3 months, which is when I got her.
 

dogcrazy

Experienced Member
Laws sometimes annoy me. They are putting building and parking lots on fields, there are like no dog parks here or there is so much garbage in parks so dogs here don't have the chance to be off-leash:mad:. Also the fine is so expensive!! Also here legally you are only allowed to own 4 dogs or cats and dogs aren't allowed on buses. :mad:
 

648117

Honored Member
I find it interesting the way different countries manage their dogs.
And the limiting how many animals you can have - does this limit just include dogs or cats and dogs or all animals (eg, cats, dogs, rabbits, rat, birds.....)?

And do most people live in apartments where you live or in houses?
I would think this would effect what laws need to be made. For example, here most people live in houses (rented or owned) and my house is only a 15 minute walk to the center of town but we have two chickens in the backyard. We are allowed to have the chickens (we just can't have a rooster, and I don't think we would be allowed a sheep or goat or pig or cow or any other farm animal, but chickens are fine unless a neighbour complains) and we are allowed as many cats as we like (we have four). I think there is an upper limit for pet dogs, maybe 6, but I'm not sure.
 

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//" And do most people live in apartments where you live or in houses? "//


It'd be interesting to know in my town, which it is, more ppl in apts, or more ppl in individual homes. I did a quick google, made some rough calculations, and i think most ppl in my town live in homes vs apts.
I think the bigger the city, the more ppl are sharing a building together (apts). Like NY city, everyone in the city, is in an apt or condo.

In my town, if within city limits(I live outside city limits)----it's 6 animal TOTAL limit, (cats and dogs, etc) total.
this varies from one city to another, etc.
 

southerngirl

Honored Member
In my county(Gwinnett) you can have as many cats as you want. There are no laws on cats. You can own as many horses as you have acres 3 acres(3horse). I don't think there are any laws on how many dogs you own were I live, I live in a small farms neighborhood.
 

648117

Honored Member
In my town, if within city limits(I live outside city limits)----it's 6 animal TOTAL limit, (cats and dogs, etc) total.
I find this very interesting.
So the six includes all animals.
So if you had 6 rabbits, you couldn't have any more pets?
Or 6 rats? or 6 mice? or 6 goldfish?
it can't really be that extreme, can it?
Or is it un-caged animals?

Could you have 6 sheep or goats?
I know that might sound a bit silly, but you can definitly find goats, sheep and llamas within a 20 minute drive from my house (which is in an inner suburb). And we are not the only people with chickens around here. And I know a house that has bee hives in the front yard (do honeybees count as pets?)

I can't really talk in terms of city limits, I just looked up the city limits on wikipedia, and my city is actually way way bigger then I thought :oops: (by geographic size) and includes farm land and settlements that I thought were seperate towns that wikipedia tells me are actually suburbs O_o .

"land area of 3,314.8 square kilometres (1,279.9 sq mi), slightly smaller than the American state of Rhode Island" - wikipedia
 
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