Australian leader of the opposition is a dog blogger

Since I started Penny's blog I've found lots of interesting people who like to write about life with a dog. It was a surprise, though, to see a story about a prominent Australian dog blogger on page one of mx - a daily paper designed to be read on the evening train commute by people who've lost half their wits during a long, tiring day at work.

Malcolm Turnbull, the Leader of the Opposition, was accused of updating Twitter posts about his dog blog during Question Time in Parliament.

Of course I took a look around the Net to find his dog blog. Call me easily influenced, if you like, but this is one of the few times I've warmed to a politician. I really liked the posts I read.

I particularly liked the one about Embarkation Park. Jojo the dog (aka Malcolm Turnbull, or whoever writes it - can't quite get rid of the cynical attitude to politicians, unfortunately) quotes one of my heroes in the fight to protect the millennia-long bond between dogs and humans - Clover Moore, whom I've written about previously when she proposed a bill to ban the sale of dogs in pet shops. On Turnbull's blog she is quoted as saying

"regular off-leash exercise helped dogs socialise and release pent-up energy, reducing nuisance behaviour such as uncontrolled barking."

Recently there has been an endless, fraught debate about the use of some of the local Darebin Parklands for off-leash exercise of dogs. Seeing the vital role of off-leash exercise mentioned on the blog of the Leader of the Opposition gives me heart that this issue has some powerful supporters.