The Camp Dog and the Poundie

Buying a Rescue Dog in Australia

Our dogs Spirit* and Nala* are my third and fourth dogs, first dogs in Australia, and first ever rescue dogs.

The choice to buy rescue dogs was really a no-brainer. Dog breeding/selling in Australia is a haphazard industry which permits dog breeding in large scale kennel facilities (as opposed to a family setting, which is the proper setting for production of family dogs) and puppy sale in pet stores, resulting in a large volume of low quality dogs being distributed via pet stores and newspaper ads on an ongoing basis. Buying from any of the commercial dog distribution channels in Australia is a bit like playing Russian Roulette with dog ownership.

And don’t even get me started on the systematic degeneration of dog breeds by the pure breed industry. No inbred pedigrees with deform anatomy and hereditary diseases for us, thank you. Just a dog!

 
The rescue dog option

A dog purchased from a dog rescue organisation may originate from the same type of conditions and haphazard breeding, but usually comes with lifetime take-back guarantee, behavioural evaluation and adjustment by passionate, experienced handlers, and plenty of support if needed. It also feels lovely to offer a good home to a homeless dog, especially considering the large numbers of dogs in need of a new home at any time.

PetRescue is Australia’s major pet rehoming web service that enables pet rescue organisations to advertise their available animals (mainly dogs) to potential adopters in a neat, informative, attractive manner. The Rescue organisations act as a protecting buffer between shelters and adopters of homeless dogs. They select and save dogs and cats from shelters and place them in foster care where the dogs are trained and their behaviour observed in a normal family environment.

The less lucky dogs that aren’t bailed out by rescue organisations can be purchased directly from the shelters. That route to pet adoption is shorter, cheaper and more unpredictable.

So, a rescue dog is typically a dog that started out as a normal puppy, probably bred commercially, which then lost its home and ended up in a shelter. That’s definitely the case for the vast majority of rescue dogs in all the major towns and the cities.

Outside the metropolitan areas there’s another large group of unwanted dogs; unlike the puppy mill dogs and shelter dogs they roam around freely and interact with people and other dogs, largely left to fend for themselves. They are an integral part of the communities they live in, but where their populations are not in check they are starving and struggle with parasites, and their numbers, condition and prevalence everywhere is a health problem for the people they live around as well as themselves. I am talking about the Australian Camp Dogs.

 
The Camp Dog

Our dog Spirit* started her life as a camp dog in a remote aboriginal village in the Northern Territory. Spirit’s home town looks something like this:

 

Source: domusweb.it – article by Philippa Nicole Barr.

 
and is located near the the Central Australian Desert.

The bush neighbourhood and the dog pound

The neighbourhood I currently drive in for the interviewer job is down a long no-through road that branches into a network of curvy, secluded no-through roads on the edge of bushland. The suburb is semi-rural with paddocks with grazing horses, cattle and sheep as well as stretches with bush and forest, and no street lights after a certain point. Evenings are dark and quiet apart from the sounds of birds and insects in the forest alongside the road, and the air smells dry and fore-sty.

 

Image from Australian Bush-apes

 
When I drive out there after dark I actually keep my car doors locked*. I have a strong LED torch handy and have finally unpacked the pocket alarm I got from my employer to carry it with the work equipment. What do a female Scandinavian like me know about Australian stranger danger…  The bush is a deep unknown space where people can disappear without a trace**.

The houses sit on large blocks of land behind long driveways and large rugged front lawns; often fully fenced. It doesn’t look like a rich suburb despite the large properties; many houses look old and wooden with DIY extensions, and some have caravans and rusty cars huddling around them.

 
Neighbourhood assumptions

Here are my assumptions about people who have chosen to settle in this type of neighbourhood:

• They like nature and serenity
• They prefer to be left alone by people
• They have big guard dogs to protect against intruders

Guard dogs is the real potential danger; a highly unpredictable variable. Here are my strategies  for minimising dog risks:

 
Dog Danger Avoidance Strategies

From the perspective of a resident dog, everything is wrong with the presence and behaviour of me entering its territory. Trespassing, snooping around, being a stranger, even nervous (although I try to hide it)… It is its job to keep me out.

For that reason, I’m armed with dog treats when I enter an unknown property (hoping that all dogs take bribes). Before I enter the gate of a fenced property, I whistle and call to lure potential dogs out in the open, and if I see any, talk to them with my most friendly, light-pitched, gentle voice.  I continue to whistle and call calmly as I walk up the driveway to show potentials dogs that I am unworried and not trying to sneak up on anyone.

So far it works, but I haven’t yet had to enter a property with rottweilers or one of the humongous sized Neapoletan Mastiff-type dogs I have seen.

 

 
 
Stray dog dramas

On the first few days driving in the area a different type of dog drama came up:

On the second day a couple of stray dobermann crosses appeared from the bush and followed my car. I was driving slowly, looking for addresses with open windows, music in the radio and dog treats in the driver’s door. They disappeared into the bush again after a while.

The next day, when I stopped the car to write an address in Google Maps, a Staffy X-like little dog came over. It had severe Mange with almost half of the fur missing on it back and was underweight, shy and very hungry. I gave it some treats and tried to grab the collar so I could see if there was a name tag (there wasn’t), but it was scared and bolted when I reached out***.

Desert Dogs: a social media success story

Here is a great social media case story that shows how simple yet effective social media marketing can be.

First the problem that the clever social media marketing strategy helps to solve, far away in a corner of the Central Desert of Australia:

 
The dog plague

Camp dogs are both an integral part of life in outback Australia and, in many remote townships, a problem of plague proportions.

 

Camp dog