A Walk With the Dogs

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One of the best things about having moved from downtown Toronto to our property near Mount Forest is the backyard.

Our acreage is actually an east west stretching pie shape. Our technical ‘backyard’ isn’t really huge – in fact, we can easily see our property line from our deck, or our pool. What’s behind that property line, however, makes it all worth while.

Behind us lies an old access road – one of what are called, in this area, ‘Heritage Roads’. It was the moving of this Heritage Road that actually carved out the piece of property we now live on, and the original road borders us to the south. It’s been declared by our township a protected road, due to its being Heritage designated. The property to the south of the road itself is owned by our neighbor, who has designated it as protected woodland. This leaves us with the perfect combination – a road which is really just a tree shaded pathway, ambling through woods and past streams, for almost three miles. For the dogs, its heaven.

Walking the dogs in the city required a car. Frenchies – or mine, at least – aren’t great fans of the structured sidewalk meander. They prefer parks, and for parks, we had to drive, or use the tiny and perilously close to the road school yard near our house. Taking the dogs to the off leash park required loading them up, driving, finding parking, and then hoping we didn’t run into any out of control off leash (and unusually un neutered) dogs while we were there. More and more often, it seemed we were having issues with this – dogs whose owners were unable or unwilling to control them, putting our dogs at risk. In one memorable case, a huge Lab mix attacked and rolled Ellie, while his owner cavalierly yelled that he was “Just playing”. Incidents like this started to make the park less and less appealing.

Now, we walk the dogs every night. Each dogs sets it own pace, walking as far ahead as they’re comfortable, running when the mood strikes them, poking noses into bushes and grass, chasing frogs, sniffing deer tracks on the trail, and, in one case, flushing a covey of pheasants.

It sure beats the sidewalk.

Continue to view a video of the dogs on their walk yesterday. Better yet, view it here – the quality is much, much better.

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Pit Bull Heroes

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Grab the kleenex before you watch this video.

Sniffle…

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A Litter Update – and Some Thoughts on Multiple Breedings

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Right, first things first. For those of you just interested in litter news and puppy updates, here’s what we know at the moment:

Mae is NOT pregnant. She likely re-absorbed her pups at some point after her ultrasound. It happens.
Divine is NOT pregnant.
Journey might be pregnant.
Sailor is pregnant.

There you have it. You can now choose, if you’d like, to skip reading the remainder of this post – however, if you bother to read to the end, there’s a nice, gratuitous film clip of Penelope, Ellie, Tula and Mae wrestling. Read more →

Penelope Yodels

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Just a quick video, showing off Penelope’s junior version of the infamous Frenchie Death Yodel. More later today, on puppies and breeding and why you should get a really big basket if you plan on putting all your eggs into it.

Sigh.

Fatal Dog Attack Near Ottawa

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In a tragic incident over the weekend, a 17 month old toddler was mauled to death by her grandparent’s dog. There was no history of agression with the dog, a Shepherd Rottweiler mix, and it was apparently raised with children and well socialized.

While the story is undoubtedly horrific, I was most shocked by the even handed coverage it was given in the reporting newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen. After outlining the chain of events which led to the attack and the child’s death, the Citizen reporter then mentions that this is the first dog attack related death since Ontario’s so-called ‘Dangerous Dog’ act was enabled. He then includes quotes from Emile Thrien, a spokesman for the Canada Safety Council, including this one:

“Actually, the lead biter is the Labrador retriever,” said Mr. Thrien. “The problem is that if you try to ban a particular breed, you never stop.”

In an even better example of even handedness, the reporter also interviewed the president of the Rottweiler Club of Canada –

Adele Foley, president of the Rottweiler Club of Canada, says Rottweilers are often portrayed as vicious dogs.

“The breed itself is actually a cattle dog,” she said.

“It’s a big, smart, muscular dog. So if people want to use this dog for the wrong reason, they do it.”

Ms. Foley said above all, the responsibility lies with owners, not the dog.

“Owning a dog is not a right, it’s a privilege,” she said. “People can’t leave children alone with dogs. The dogs need to be fenced.”

This is, undeniably, a horrid incident, and my heart goes out to the family. I’d also like to thank the Ottawa Citizen reporter for giving us what could well have been just another ‘Dogs are bad, ban them all story’, but turned into a sadly well written illustration of why there really truly are no bad breeds, just bad dogs.

You can read the whole article after the cut.

Carol

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