Thread: Dogs in national parks

Originally Posted by trout1105

What problems can a dog that is well behaved or on a leash cause in a national park or anywhere else for that matter?
All this "Fuss" over a couple of dogs in the park when in reality it is the human visitors that cause the majority of the damage including crapping indiscriminately everywhere and leaving dunny paper all over the show.
Banning dogs in the parks put many families and grey nomads at a disadvantage because they can't go there because of their pets who in reality are a part of the family , Stupid bloody rule I recon.

Unfortunately history tells us that the well behaved/on a leash puppy is not in the majority (in this example). Yes everybody can say they have or know of a perfect example but in reality I don't believe this is the case. And, IMHO the grey nomads are probably not the best example of considerate dog owners.

Originally Posted by trout1105

Quite a few of the national parks have healthy populations of Dingo's, Good luck keeping those out of the park

Why would you want to keep them out of National Parks? They may have been introduced thousands of years ago but have now been declared a native animal in pure bred form so they have every right to be in National Park if that encompasses their natural range.

I’m not sure 🤔 but I do believe one of the major factors in banning dogs in NP’s in the first place, was because owners would “lose” their dogs and then we had a “wild dog problem”.

Most of us dog owners don’t have issues with keeping them out of these areas,, as said already, those that think they have “the right to do what they want” will do just that. And then of course, more problems will ensue.

My Mrs. loathes dogs and if she had her way the animals would be banned from suburbs and towns as well as National Parks. "Dirty, smelly, noisy creatures" she says "that serve no useful purpose unless they are working dogs or service dogs".

I am not in total agreement with her views but around here there are legions of barky, yappy, animals whose owners don't have the ability or the will to control them. Council by-law 30.06 should be applied to many of them.

Originally Posted by Chops

I’m not sure 🤔 but I do believe one of the major factors in banning dogs in NP’s in the first place, was because owners would “lose” their dogs and then we had a “wild dog problem”.

A popular belief but it has no place in reality. The wild dogs have been here and breeding in the wild since colonization of the country when the early settlers arrived with their dogs of which some escaped into the wilds to prosper and never to return to their owners.

In Victoria this is vastly different to todays reality if the family dog goes missing into the wild. The usual result is for it to be killed and eaten by the wild dog packs. They do not accept the newcomer at all.

As for dingoes in Vic. It is commonly accepted by the science boffins that every dingo in Victoria has wild dog genes in its makeup. Even those that visually look like a pure bred dingo have wild dog genes in their makeup. The notion of a pure bred dingo in Vic is no longer a reality.

I read somewhere a while back that one of the main concerns with pet dogs in national parks is that their scent will make areas uninhabitable for some native animals. To say that it doesn't matter because there are already populations of feral dogs in some areas is a ridiculous argument.
I think the thing that annoys me most about this type of thing is the attitude that it demonstrates. We have a dog who is part of the family, a loved pet, but if an outing is going to take us to a national park, he stays home. Nothing difficult about it.
Slightly different to the idiots who leave their rubbish spread all over the place. A couple of spots that we have been visiting for nearly 35 years, used to be pristine, now covered in broken bottles, beer and bourbon cans, toilet paper, piles of cigarette butts where the car ashtray was emptied. I never used to understand this, but for the past 22 years I've been seeing the inside of other people's homes every day and I know now that the inside of their house looks just like the way they leave their campsites.

It's a sense of entitlement I will take my dog wherever I want restaurant, Bunnings,doctors ,shopping centres they don't care just plain arrogances they think nothing should be out of bounds to there dam mutt my dog doesn't go camping with me it won't go shopping rather it's a dog. The attitude that my dog is well behaved is ridiculous take it out of it's normal area and they become inquisitives and on edge with there new environment and how many times have we seen a dog attack on tv and the owner saying he's never done that before he's normally a very gentle pet.

We have an old (12 yrs) jack russel/bitza bitch that is simply too lazy to get into mischief and we take pretty much everywhere we go But we can only go to areas that we are allowed to take a dog, NP's and many other places are off limits.
We also live 30 k's out of town and our nearest neighbour is about 5k's away so its Not as if she is an annoyance to the neighbours.

With the increase in recreational 4WD's over the last couple of decades and the complete lack of respect for the environment many of these people have for our national parks which is evidenced by the damage, graffiti, and pollution they cause every year complaining about a few pooches in the park is But a storm in a teacup.
You only have to look at the "I got bogged at Inskip" type footage to see the extent of the stupidity and recklessness of some of our 4WDing community and pull into just about any roadside stop/truck bay to see all the garbage and excreta that motorists in general scatter around the country.
Dogs are "Saints" compared to the wave of Human garbage that visit our national parks every year.