INNOCENT DOGS EUTHANIZED

:

Owner Samantha Graham saying goodbye on Thursday.

The Australian Veterinary Association has slammed Victorian laws which led to two innocent dogs being euthanized.

Dogs named Bear and Kooda were put down 
under the state's new dangerous dog laws in Shennarton on Thursday
after their owners lost a lengthy legal battle to save their lives.  The dogs did not do anything wrong but were destroyed after a local coucil officer identified them as pit bull crosses despite owners Nathan Laffan and Samantha Graham's claims they were bred from a bull mastiff cross American bulldog and a staffie cross ridgeback.  AVA Victoria president Susan Maastricht said the case could end up as "scapegoats" under the law.  Bear and Kooda were impounded because they look like pit bull crosses, Dr. maastricht said.    " This is exactly why we were opposed to the legislation from the outset."  "Not only will it fail to prevent dog bites, innocent dogs can clearly end up being scapegoats because of the way they look."
Mr. Laffan and Ms Graham were the first Victorians to 
challenge the dog laws - introduced last September
after the fatal mauling of Melbourne toddler Aven Chol in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.   At
the centre of the Cobram couples case against Moira Shire Council which they lost in May, was a statutory declaration from a local breeder saying the dogs came from a bull mastiff cross American bulldog and a staffie cross ridgeback.  The legislation provided guidelines for councils on how to identify pit bulls based on key 
markers including muscular build head profile and size-to weight ratio, Victoria's Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said.  To help councils enforce the law, the coalition governement introduced visual standards to help council officers correctly identify pit bull types dogs and provided training for council officers in use of the standard, he said.  Dr. Maastricht said if Bear and Kooda fit the standards then it was most likely they were pit bull crosses, but there still was a chance the council officer could have been mistaken.  "To some degree there is the potential for subjectivity,"  she said.  Identifying pit bulls could also be problematic because all pit bulls were technically cross-bred, she said.  "You could have a litter of these and all of them
could look completely different,"  she said.

U.K. TEENAGER TORTURES DOG

A Dog Tortured!

19 year old Sean Deakin put a dog in deep-suffering and torture with
a hammer, stabbed it and left it in agony on the kitchen floor while he went to the Job Centre to sign on. The dog, Tyson, a male Staffordshire bull terrier suffered for eight hours before it died. The RSPCA was alerted by a witness to the attack and later they found the body of the dog in a wheelie bin.

The boy’s girlfriend, Sarah Tame also 19, took ownership of the dog only days before the incident after replying to an advert posted on the website Gumtree.  Deakin was arrested charged with three counts of causing an animal unnecessary suffering.  At first he denied the accusations but he was guilty at a hearing at Manchester magistrate's Court and now
faces up to 6 months imprisonment.  An RSPCA spokesperson said that it was one of the worst attacks 
on an animal she had witnessed.  It was heard in court that the dog had been battered 20 times in the head with a hammer during the night.  The boy awoke in the morning to discover the dog had urinated on the bed so he chased it around the kitchen and on catching it, stabbed it in the chest.


His girlfriend, Tame pleaded guilty to one count of unnecessary suffering by not seeking veterinary attention for the dog.  Deakin who originates from Wigan will be sentenced at Manchester Magistrates Court on the 28th of June.

THERAPY DOGS GRADUATE IN HAWAI'I

THERAPY  DOGS  GRADUATE  IN  HAWAI'I


Graduating season may be over, but a new

group of students is gearing-up for their 
graduation Saturday.    After completing two 
years of school, six service dogs are graduating
from Hawai'i  from Canines For Independence
training camp on maui tomorrow.  

.Dog trainer, Kimmy Seguin said, "We start off in kindergarten when the puppies are only eight weeks old and we train them just the basic commands. Then we jump on to basic training where we start training them all 90 commands."

The soon-to-be graduates are prepping to share their skills across the globe. One dog is headed all the way to Japan's Yokohama Children's Hospital.

Another will work at the Queen's Medical Center's Cancer Clinic and one more will stay on the Valley Isle as a courthouse dog.

Mo Maurer, the executive director said, "Most of our clients are quadriplegics and paraplegics."

Two of the dogs will help residents who live with disabilities including a 16 year-old boy with muscular dystrophy and a sixth dog will provide therapy at a Kahului assisted living facility where they can offer a helping paw when it comes to some of the things we take for granted.

"Opening the refrigerator and taking a drink out and taking it to the person," said Maurer.

Hawaii Canines for Independence is nationally accredited and has a 70% success rate.

"We will find out exactly what that person needs whether they drop their keys very often lots of different things we can do to specifically train that dog for that person with skills," said Seguin.

The dogs are also heavily involved in the community via special events and outreach including the Wounded Warrior project, scent detection and assisting with work place readiness.

"Good boy thank you."

After graduation the non-profit organization keep.

 tabs on the gradates by foullowing up within the first month, three and six months then every year after that.


Again, dogs provide for humans...and  give of themselves so  willingly, so generously.


We thank our Service Therapy Dogs!