1) Stan Rawlinson approached K9 Magazine to write for us. He wanted to raise his profile. That is something he is interested in, raising his profile. We took him at face value and allowed him to submit some articles.

2) He also posted on a forum belonging to K9 Media (publisher of K9 Magazine), he has since claimed it to be a K9 Magazine forum, however K9 Magazine has never had a forum, it was a forum known as DogChat and it has been pointed out to him several times that K9 Magazine and DogChat are not one and the same. K9 Media publishes more than 40 sites, so the link is me, the link is K9 Media – but DogChat is a forum, K9 Magazine is  a magazine – so when Stan Rawlinson tries to tie the two together, it’s to further an agenda, not tell the truth. But that’s a running theme as you’ll find out in a minute. It was on this forum that problems arose as Rawlinson acted exceptionally abusively toward – basically – anyone who disagrees with him and is prepared to engage in his hostility. He also, more worryingly, highlighted a really worrying lack of awareness about various dog issues.

3) Eventually a split had to happen. Rawlinson engaged in so much hostility toward various forum members and eventually he started to really flip his lid. He then decided to publish a webpage which contained exceptionally defamatory information about both me and K9 Magazine. I will now reproduce some of what was written:

I have written many articles for numerous canine magazines. One of them was a publication called K9 Magazine. A glossy somewhat frothy magazine that in reality did not fit comfortably with my ethos on dog and behavioural training.

Remember, HE contacted us. Remember, the forum where he was involved with various slanging matches was NOT a K9 Magazine forum – it was moderated by me. So he contacted a magazine and asked to write for it and then, once he’d realised that just because he wrote a couple of very average articles for the magazine it didn’t grant him immunity on one of our forums published by K9 Media, he THEN decides that K9 Magazine ‘didn’t fit with his ethos’. OK.

Let’s move on, he writes in reference to an article appearing in K9 Magazine which advocating ad-lib feeding of a raw diet by a professional dog trainer:

After reading this I became extremely concerned as to their abilities and knowledge of dogs. To advise feeding a dog until it pops is foolhardy in the extreme, and this dog is not a puppy as Carol O’Herlihy a Director of a franchise dog training company called Barkbusters claims. He is a nine months old Cocker Spaniel. In human terms that would be approximately 12 years old. This magazine and it’s editor and publisher in chief Ryan O’Meara then supported the recommendation by saying:

“As for the feeding advice, I state again – IT WORKED. Why would I be dubious of publishing the advice when I have personal experience in using the technique, IT WORKS. Believe me when I say if I felt we had got it wrong, I’d have no problem stating it. On this occassion, Stan is wrong. Simple.”

Needless to say he is neither a dog trainer nor a behaviourist. What does concern me is people may think that this magazine or Mr O’Meara’ are knowledgeable regarding dogs, dog training and behavioural counselling, and may follow this dangerous and foolhardy advice.

If you did this to a child you would be setting that child up for many health and psychological problems in the future. And with the new Animal Welfare Bill due April 2007 then it could be construed under the acts “duty of care” as dangerous, therefore it is concievable that you could be prosecuted.

I ran this scenario past over fifty trainers and behaviourists, all stated both the initial advise and the follow up by Ryan O.Meara to be both ludicrous and positively life threatening.

Here’s where it starts to become worrying about how little Stan Rawlinson actually knows about dogs. As has since been pointed out to him:

“Our domestic dogs can readily adapt to a number of feeding regimens, the primary ones being portion-controlled feeding, time-controlled feeding, and free-choice or ad libitum feeding (Case et al,. 2000)” ~ Source: Nutrition for Veterinary Technicians and Nurses  By Ann Wortinger.

Note the source, it’s hardly a discreditable one.

Rawlinson no longer has the defamatory (and wrong) wording on his web page he has – wisely – removed it, either because he’s been made to look silly or because he’s had some good advice. Either way, he never issued an apology for essentially saying (in contradiction to a veterinary technicians source) that K9 Magazine had given out ‘dangerous’ or life threatening advice.

One can draw from this one of two things 1) He doesn’t know much about dogs if he doesn’t recognise that dogs in the wild have access to as much food as they can eat and yet that, in and of itself, is certainly not ‘life threatening’ (in fact it’s pretty obvious) and further he’s obviously not had enough experience to actually comment on ad-lib feeding systems which are used by various working dog kennels and is something I have personal experience of – or – 2) He’s prepared to basically say anything in an attempt to discredit me and K9 Magazine.

Let’s take a look at his last line:

I ran this scenario past over fifty trainers and behaviourists, all stated both the initial advise and the follow up by Ryan O.Meara to be both ludicrous and positively life threatening.

He has been asked to name these ‘trainers’. He has failed to do so. But he published it. It’s RIGHT HERE – despite his attempt to erase it from history, he can’t. So what, has he changed his mind? Been told to remove it? Or decided he was wrong? We have asked him to provide the names of the ’50 trainers’ he consulted and, let’s be honest, if he REALLY had, then why wouldn’t he back up such strong, overwhelming evidence? Seriously? Why not? Especially if, as he said, we were giving out ‘life threatening’ advice surely these dog trainers would have ethical concerns of their own to approach us? But no. They never came forward and he never backed up with the names. Make of that what you will.

He goes on:

K9 also allowed a person called Denis Carthy real name Michael Cartie, on their website forum, where he proceeded to advocate the use of an electronic shock collar on a partially blind/deaf and disabled dog, without any apparent concern or comment from K9, or the forum administrator, who is also the editor and publisher in chief of K9 Ryan O’Meara.

Here’s where he’s REALLY starting to stretch things. When you run a busy forum, many views will be aired. It goes without saying that if you run a forum that encourages free speech and all variety of views then it stands to reason that you do not ENDORSE ANY of them. If he would have used some logic on that front he’d realise that if two people have an argument on a forum, if you then try and claim the moderator endorses or supports EVERYTHING that is posted on the forum then, by definition, they must endorse BOTH sides of the argument! He essentially made up an argument to suit himself here.

Does K9 Magazine support the abuse of dogs?

Do I even need to answer? All I’ll say is this, every issue of K9 Magazine ever published is on the public record – it’s in the British Library – every issue – I would encourage anyone to flick through every last word on every last page and find ANYTHING that looks remotely like K9 Magazine encouraging or supporting the abuse of dogs. You won’t find it.

Again, Stan Rawlinson’s conduct on the forum DogChat prompted a LOT of complaints from users.

It must be noted at this stage – Stan Rawlinson has been BANNED from other dog forum for misleading users by posting under an assumed name and pretending to be someone else. He also did this on our forum AFTER he supposedly left. So when Doglistener Stan Rawlinson leaves a forum, it’s open to great debate as to the definition of ‘leaves’ because he came back and openly posted again and also came back and tried to dupe people in to believing he was someone else.

4) Deception. Stan Rawlinson mislead people about his credentials. The BBC had to write to him and tell him to stop. This is a fact. He now claims it was all a big misunderstanding. We dispute that because this is something he’d done before. He claimed on our forum that he was a ‘behavioural advisor to Disney’ – we were contacted by Disney and were told categorically that this was NOT true and in fact that should he repeat this claim, we were to remove it immediately and report it back to Disney. So on two separate occasions he tried to mislead people about his true relationship with large, well respected brands. Remember where I came in, Stan Rawlinson contacted US about writing for us, boosting his ‘profile’ is important to him. On his own website he now seeks to try and dismiss his credentials deception as a minor misunderstanding. It wasn’t. It was 100% designed to make people believe he was a spokesman for the BBC. He says:

The first time that I appeared on the BBC and I have been on many times, I believe I was introduced as a dog behavioural spokesman and canine communication expert.

So is he REALLY trying to get people to believe that he was introduced as a ‘Behavioural spokesman FOR the BBC’? Really? The BBC would introduce him as one of their OWN spoksemen? No. As before, he published something which he cannot support and tries to treat people as idiots by expecting them to believe this. For the record, this what he wrote:

Recommended by numerous Vets, Rescue Centre’s, and Charities. He writes articles and comments on behavioural issues and techniques for dog magazines including Our Dogs, Dogs Monthly, Shooting Times, Pet Talk and Pet Owner Magazine. He has acted as a behavioural spokesman for Disney, Sky, BBC, ITV and LBC. SOURCE

We all know the difference between someone giving an interview to the media and being spokesman FOR those organisations. Remember, Stan Rawlinson is concerned about his profile. Want further proof of this – have a read of this and take note of the exchange on Yahoo Answers.

5) Having been defamed, having seen how he conducted himself on our forum, having had to listen to him make outrageous (and wrong) claims about K9 Magazine giving out ‘dangerous’ advice, I made the decision that it was important for K9 Magazine to make an open apology about us ever allowing Stan Rawlinson to associate with K9 Magazine. It WAS a grave error and one we still regret. We owe it to our readers to hold our hands up when we get it wrong and we got it wrong by allowing ‘The Doglistener‘ to have his name in our magazine, badly wrong. We also owe it to the dog owning public at large to report on issues of supposedly professional dog trainers misleading people and acting abusively. We have never been scared of speaking the truth on that front, our record stands up to scrutiny. We are a dog magazine for dog lovers, our readers come first, not the ego of a person who’s prepared to lie simply because he doesn’t get his own way.

6) On the DogChat forum Stan Rawlinson, who likes to present himself as a professional person and who is the self-appointed chair of PAACT engages in the following:

- He accuses another member of ‘getting high’
- He instigates the personal abuse of other posters
- He accuses people of being not who they say are (falsely)
- He accuses an ex Police officer of being an alcoholic/drug abuser
- He reveals an outstanding lack of knowledge of operant conditioning
- He actively instigates and partakes in hostile and abusive posting toward other users
- He makes suggestions about a person’s sexual orientation (a married, ex Police officer)
- He makes racially motivated posts about Americans
- His general, boastful and hostile posting style results in many abusive exchanges with various members

I won’t bore you here but we have pages and pages and pages of Stan Rawlinson’s abusive posts towards various other dog owners. They are all in the public domain and they can be found – unlike his claim that ’50 professional trainers’ agreed with him, we are ALWAYS happy to support every last word we have written about Stan Rawlinson.

7) He continues to libel me, personally. I can live with it. He’s been exposed and he’s very, very sore about it so he responds with lies and presents it as him trying to ‘defend dogs’. We, K9 Magazine, and I personally have absolutely NO intention of getting in to a debate with Stan Rawlinson about what we have done on behalf of dogs. People can find out for themselves if they care enough to look.

On his website he writes:

The same man Ryan O’Meara went on the BBC heavily promoting the pet insurance industry, without presumably bothering to mention that one of his companies is a company called Insurance4pets.com.

I do not own a company called Insurance4Pets.com. We publish a website of the same name, it’s not a company – it’s quite simply just one of many of our pet websites. That’s our business. I promote pet insurance ALL the time as I believe it is something dog owners should have. I never mentioned the site on the BBC so how he works out that my promoting pet insurance – something I believe in and have done for years – is somehow discreditable, is an odd piece of logic. However he did whine to the BBC about it, they called me and the issue was dismissed within 20 seconds. Gone. I have appeared on the BBC several times since (including earlier this week, three times!)

9) He says:

As a matter of Interest O’Meara stated that he had talked to the BBC and they will never use me again. This man is clearly deluded and imagines he has some contacts or sway with the BBC.

A complete and utter lie. I have never said, ‘stated’ or even hinted at anything of the sort. He has simply fabricated this and, again, it is defamatory. It seems to me that Stan Rawlinson has trouble separating reality from what is going on his head. I once again say, I have never said anything of the sort, not even anything close, I have never spoken to the BBC about who they use – I couldn’t care less – he has made this up from thin air, presumably because it is something he would have LIKED me to have said so he can do a merry dance about his media exploits. I honestly don’t care. I have appeared in the media, solidly, every single week of the year – national, local, international – but you don’t see me boasting (oh, wait!!). Seriously, Stan cares about his profile, remember that. It means a lot to him if the media will speak to him, remember that. He uses it as a means to ‘validate’ himself. We witnessed a truly sickening display of this on the DogChat forum when he boasted about his appearance on TV following the DEATH of a child due to dog attack. He was, rightly, condemned by many people for his actions and lack of respect. He used the platform he was given when a young girl lost her life as a means to further a petty battle with people on a forum. Incredibly distasteful.

Finally, in this ‘setting the record straight’ mode I’m in (because it’s the LAST time I’m going to write about it) he (rather hilariously) attempts to discredit me for the following quotes (which I 100% DID make!) which he publishes on his site as a means to ‘expose’ me

”The fact that anyone would think for a single, solitary second that I care even a tiny bit about this so-called ‘dog world’ is misguided at best. I went into business on the basis of being very much everything the ‘dog world’ isn’t.”

“Those who seek acceptance and respect from ‘the dog world’ tend to be terminally retarded to the point where they become obsessed about what people say or think about them and they end up behaving like rabid, schizophrenic daleks with a one track, monotonous drone about dog related stuff that nobody in the real world gives a toss about.”

Now, as I say, I DID say this. Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit – PROBABLY MY FINEST!

I stand by every last word of that quote and am more proud of it now than I was when I wrote it. Stan, you see, can’t get his head round this fact – NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE PART OF THE ‘DOG WORLD’.

I couldn’t give a rat’s backside about ‘the dog world’. I am a DOG OWNER. First, foremost and always. The ‘dog world’ is something that people Stan care about. It’s a place full of ego maniacs who seek acceptance and public acknowledgement through……wait for it……dogs!!

It’s absolutely ludicrous. I care about dogs. End of debate. I care not one jot about ‘the dog world’. I do not seek to exhibit, I attend hardly ANY dog related trade events or shows or any of that stuff. It doesn’t interest me. I am interested in dogs and I enjoy the company of dog owners. The ‘dog world’ can go to hell. I don’t care. The REASON I started a dog magazine like K9 Magazine is BECAUSE I don’t care about the dog world. I wanted a magazine that focused on dogs and published articles that did not pander to ‘the dog world’. We don’t. We never have. So when those who feel like their place in ‘the dog world’ means something, I have news – it doesn’t mean jot. Give me ordinary, normal, every day dog owners any day of the week – NOT ‘the dog world’.

Hope that’s clear enough.

He goes on:

I will certainly be contacting the Press Complaints Commission, even though he has not signed his company K9 Magazine up to their code of conduct. Why does that not surprise me.

Oh dear. That little ploy didn’t work out too well for him, did it. Perhaps he needs to understand just a couple of things. 1) He has NEVER complained about a single thing published about him in K9 Magazine. Why? Because there has NEVER been a single thing published about him in K9 Magazine other than that which he wrote himself! His complaints arise through articles written on websites, by various people, about him. The press complaints commission is an angle that clearly failed for him. 2) K9 Magazine is not a company. It’s a magazine. You’d have thought given his obsession, he’d have been able to get at least that right!

O’Meara appears to have no educational qualifications or formal study regarding dogs or behaviour yet he is spouting advice that people may think is from an informed and professional behaviourist.

He is now suggesting that in order to give advice about dogs, one needs to have ‘educational’ qualifications. Interesting.

Members shall respect the views and independence of other dog trainers and behaviourist, and shall not publicly decry their conduct, methods or opinions.

This from Stan Rawlinson’s PAACT organisation. Whoops. Stan, you see, is very much a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kind of person. Take for example:

PAACT members should conduct themselves honestly, professionally and compassionately and perform these services within the guidelines of this code.

Ha! Don’t make me laugh. Honest? Professional? Remember, Stan Rawlinson has joined dog related forums, posted under assumed names, talked ABOUT himself in the third person – and he talks about honest?  Oh, and by the way, he doesn’t even deny he’s done this (because he can’t). The man who had to be TOLD by both Disney AND the BBC to stop saying he was their ‘behavioural advisor’. Give me strength. The man who claims ’50 other trainers’ agreed with him on an issue which he has since removed from his site but never apologised for – and is directly contradicted by veterinary opinion? PAACT, as an organisation, is completely discredited BECAUSE of him. He discredits his OWN organisation by riding roughshod over its own ‘ethics’. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ – remember.

So, that’s it. I’ve given my side, personally. And whilst I do appreciate when people contact me and let me know that Stan Rawlinson is STILL obsessing about me or he’s making things up about K9 Magazine (and then changing it, hoping it will go away)  a brief background is here for all to read and link to, should they want to.

I have a business to run and whilst Rawlinson says on his site:

I have asked them to sue me over my statements needless to say these bully boys didn’t have the bottle. I am therefore suing them and I do have the bottle.

I will simply sign off by saying, Stan – please do. Please do. Don’t threaten it. Don’t ‘brag about it’, get on and do it. Let’s have this one out shall we. Let’s have it on the record, proven and no longer open to dispute. See you in court. And if you’re not going to actually let us have this one tested in court, if you’re not going to actually back up – with names the ’50 professional trainers’ you spoke to, who all agreed with you, if you’re not concerned about just how MUCH will be made available for a judge to consider about how you have conducted yourself and the out and out LIES you have published about me, my company, my magazine – if you’re NOT going to do that, then kindly stop puffing your chest out and threatening it. I’m ready, willing and more than looking forward to it if you want to make this happen.

Until then, I have a business to run and you certainly won’t find ME making THESE sort of Twitter posts:

K9 Magazine and Ryan O’Meara people are questioning his mental state after latest outburts. I have written about rage syndrome but not human

Once again I am having problems with that fool Ryan O’Meara, I have put a quote. Ratner?

K9 Magazine and k9 media liars << (Very articulate one, that. As if written by The Bard himself)

Ryan O,Meara K9 magazine is proved to be a liar

So, that’s (at time of writing) a total of 8 posts, exactly 50% of which are about ME! Stan, ever considered taking up golf? Something? Anything? You need to worry far less about my mental state and focus a bit more on moving forward. It will do you the world of good. And any time you fancy taking it that little step further with a court date, I’ll be happy to see you then. So now you can feel free to write what you like, rant about me, fill your ENTIRE Twitter page up about me, whatever makes you happy – but this here post is my last word on the issue. I’m effectively handing you as many free punches as you like, but – unlike you – I WON’T be trying to re-write history and erase what has actually happened, what I have written or any quotes I have made. The quote you try and mock me for is – still – one that represents me. You can have the ‘dog world’ all to yourself, it’s yours to enjoy.

Done.