Pitbulls

Having a undesexed pitbull is illegal
breeding from a pitbull is illegal
trading a pitbull is illegal
acquiring a pitbull is illegal
not declaring to your council thst you have a pitbull is illegal
not registering your pitbull is illegal
not having a restricted dogs permit for your pitbull is illegal
To get a permit and your dog registered requires you to show evidence to council that you have in place all the restricted dog provisions....
these include adequate fencing, shelter, muzzling your dog in public, desexing by 9 months, having a warning sign on your property to warn you have a restricted dog for emergency personnnel etc, there is a loooong list of requirements. These get reviewed by council every 12 months. If you dont have a permit and rego or they decline to give you one, they can come to your property and cease and destroy your dog. You get one complaint about your dogs behaviour and they can choose to deny your permit and rego and cease your dog.
do you want this stress every 12 months??? owning a restricted breed comes with a lot of extra requirements, responsibilities.

bottom line is, you shouldnt even be in this situation because if the laws were followed by the owners of your dogs parents in the first place your dog wouldnt exist. i'm sorry you are, i have two dogs mysrlf and love dogs and i saw your pic and your puppy is gorgeous. but the law is not on your side here.

also, you can only destroy him her surrender him to council, giving him to any other person is illegal.
i think you should really call your council first thing monday and get the lowdown on all the requirements of restricted dogs. you dont want to pay money to desex only to have council cease and destroy him a week later because you've been reported to council for breaking a law.

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In my opinion kids riding on the dog's back is not exactly play you might want to encourage. You want let your dog know that the kids are superior to him not play mates.

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I disagree. Probably not great for the dog as the kid gets heavier but dogs need to know Kids are unpredictable, and a dog needs to learn to be tolerant of them. If my son decides to hop on our dogs back, he let's him and that's that. If my son decides to give our dog a cuddle, our dog let's him. God, if DS wants to put his fingers up our dogs nose, pull on his ears and prod at his eyes he let's him! But of course there are times you draw a line purely because it's not nice of the dog. Eg: having a toy lawn mower plowed into you. Our dog still let's ds do that, but I don't because it's just mean! (same with the eye poking/ear pulling). DS also "gives" mannix stuff. I've watched him line up an assortment of toys, his own drink, hand things to mannix and mannix gently takes them from him or just watches (in amusement or tires annoyance, I'm never sure!)

When we first got mannix we were kidless however my sil had children so we always "roughed him up" from the get go so he'd be used to these "toddler" things. Pulling on his ears randomly, at his tail (obviously not to cause pain) so he would be tolerant of it if they did it.

My dd climbs and clambers over our dog too.... Will randomly cuddle and kiss him.... Tread on his fur (which isn't hard).

Kids need to be taught how to respect animals too. I'm probably on at ds & dd more to be gentle with the dog, than the other way around.

Kids are the ones who you can explain it to.... Dogs don't speak English.... They speak canine!

Dogs also can't tell a kid to rack off when they're annoying them.... They can't shove them away.... The only thing they have.... Is their mouths!

That is when you have to be careful.

But I agree with helle.... Dogs and kids together need to know where the line is drawn.




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- Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - I wonder what the kids are up to....Better go!

i would second the idea of calling your council first thing monday morning and getting some help on this issue.

I have been thinking about this, and am going to ask what may seem a really dumb question: Do you actually own a pitbull? Maybe that would be the first thing to determine for sure.

I am posting a link to prove my point.
Pet Pitbull - Find the Pit Bull

My brother bought a 'mastiff' X which is now fully grown and looks almost exactly like a fox terrier. People do get it wrong all of the time and you may want to consider if what you have is indeed a pitbull, and not a mix of staffy or mastiff or anything really. Do you have papers with it?

the vet can do a DNA test to determine whether the dog has pit bull in it

I used to work for the company that provides these DNA tests- unfortunately the test is not configured to test for pure bred American pit bull.
The test was developed by collecting thousands of DNA samples of pure bred dogs in Australia- APBT is not a recognized pure bred dog in Australia, nor were people that have these dogs willing to provide DNA samples.

However I did stop working for the company about 2 years ago, so it is possible that the technology has changed.
You can google BITSA or breed specificity test.

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Again I would like to point out that lock jaw is a myth.

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Thank you!

this page might be a good read to help Educate some of the ignorant. Remember not all that you see on tv or in the papers are the truth, media like to glamourise things, after all if its not going to hold your interest then your less likely to pay attention. They use fear mongering when it comes to dog attacks.
some research.
The history
Dose your or your neighbours dog pass as a pit bull with this?
Myths and legends, understand a bull

some news articles.
vets warning
rspca boss


ETA, im not calling anyone ignorant, please do not take offence, ive just read that and it didnt come out the best, hopefully you can read past the ignorant comment! i can not think of a better wording at the moment. b ut people do need top be better educated on a topic that is potrayed as such a strong subject

ETAA: update with proper links..

Lashes - whilst it is great to link information, that site does look quite dubious. The information "may" be correct, but it is not verifiable. Something from an official breed club, or recognised society would be more appropriate.

Canine racism?? I LOL'ed.

I found that stats about german shepards pretty interesting, I'm terrified of those things!

thanks astrid, i am trying to locate some of the actual sites, ill edit them in when my computer gremlins start cooperating.

Good on you, Reet, for making the vet appt and following up with how to deal with the restrictions. That is responsible dog ownership. Let us know how it works out!

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I have been thinking about this, and am going to ask what may seem a really dumb question: Do you actually own a pitbull? Maybe that would be the first thing to determine for sure.

I am posting a link to prove my point.
Pet Pitbull - Find the Pit Bull

My brother bought a 'mastiff' X which is now fully grown and looks almost exactly like a fox terrier. People do get it wrong all of the time and you may want to consider if what you have is indeed a pitbull, and not a mix of staffy or mastiff or anything really. Do you have papers with it?

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I like that link. It really does show how similar some of the breeds can look. I got it right first time, BUT that's with many many years of vet nursing under my belt. I bet a lot of people would take a few guesses to get it right.

Reet, to me the pic of your pup looked more like an American Staffy.

Pit bull terriers and American Staffordshire bull terriers diverged as breeds when the ASBT were admitted to the kennel club as an official breed. They have a breed standard and are able to have purebred status. Pit bull terriers were further developed to be 'tough' dogs, there is no official standard for them and they are not considered a breed as such. Because there is no specification for a pit bull and you cannot get one with pedigree papers, basically any tough looking dog can be labelled a pit bull - so when a tough looking dog attacks people attribute the attack to a pit bull even though it could well be another 'tough' looking dog breed, and especially tough dog cross breeds e.g. mastiff x, staffy x etc. My old lab/english staff X was referred to as a pit bull on occasion because of her heavy set head.

Just a tip - make sure your dog has a safe place that they can retreat to away from the kids. So when they are sick of being a runway for planes, having matchbox cars parked on their face and whisker pulling stops being fun they can remove themselves from the kids and go somewhere for a bit of time out.

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Again I would like to point out that lock jaw is a myth.

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I understand that the jaw physically "locking" is myth but would you agree they are more likely to bite with the intention of not letting go as opposed to biting and retracting? The pitbull that ripped my grandparents neighbors collies leg off would not let go. Not even when being hit with an iron bar.

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I understand that the jaw physically "locking" is myth but would you agree they are more likely to bite with the intention of not letting go as opposed to biting and retracting? The pitbull that ripped my grandparents neighbors collies leg off would not let go. Not even when being hit with an iron bar.

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My maltese cross who is 4.5kg has the ability to grab hold and hold on for dear life (when playing with a tug toy) - so any dog can certainly hold it's jaw tightly clenched - while 'lock jaw' might be a myth, a 20kg holding on to the death is certainly not.

Oh Oh i checked that link and got it right first time.. fluke i guess but YAY :dance: they really all do look so VERY similar.

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Pit bull terriers and American Staffordshire bull terriers diverged as breeds when the ASBT were admitted to the kennel club as an official breed. They have a breed standard and are able to have purebred status. Pit bull terriers were further developed to be 'tough' dogs, there is no official standard for them and they are not considered a breed as such. Because there is no specification for a pit bull and you cannot get one with pedigree papers, basically any tough looking dog can be labelled a pit bull - so when a tough looking dog attacks people attribute the attack to a pit bull even though it could well be another 'tough' looking dog breed, and especially tough dog cross breeds e.g. mastiff x, staffy x etc. My old lab/english staff X was referred to as a pit bull on occasion because of her heavy set head.

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I think that's what concerns me most about pit bulls. The lack of regulation in breeding. If there could be some sort of standard to breeding them, then perhaps it would help to ensure that only those with good temperaments etc were bred. The fact that it is illegal to breed them doesn't seem to be stopping people from breeding them. Also, allowing indiscriminate cross breeding leads to unpredictability in what type of dog you end up with. (Just look at what is happening with so-called 'designer breeds'. Defects that have been bred out of certain breeds for generations are now reappearing, not to mention all the other issues arising due to the lack of regulation).