Dog chasing sheep!!

RhaLoulou

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Couldn't believe what we witnessed today whilst we were out walking. A small group of 4 us with one dog (on short lead) were skirting round the edge of a field to avoid a large herd of sheep that were across the footpath. Suddenly a terrier appeared from the other end of the field and ran straight into the sheep scattering and chasing them. Then we saw an elderly couple dressed in tweeds looking very ' countrified' enter the field as well, until they saw us they made no attempt to call the dog. If this wasn't bad enough their other dog charged at us barking it head off, then the terrier turned it's yapping attentions to my dog! This was all really unpleasant as one of our group is actually quite frightened of dogs. The couple objected that I poked their dogs with my stick ( not hard just to shoo them off)I pointed out that they might like to get them under control then they wouldn't be getting poked to which they replied that they were under control!! Unbelievable that some people think that it is okay to let their dogs behave like this, no wonder dogs are so often not welcome! We are all relative townies but even we could work out that the ewes we walked through were probably waiting to lamb and were therefore extra vulnerable. Grr rant over!
 
Ah, you are too harsh, their dog was 'only playing with them'. If they were my sheep they would have been carrying one dog home.
 
A friend keeps a lot of sheep on public access sites for conservation grazing, she has had far too many sheep attacked and killed. The latest one had witnesses to the tack, but one person who saw said large dog harassing a ewe in a stream where she had bolted into, said that the dog wasn't attacking the sheep but trying to help it out of the stream !!!!! Really how stupid can people get :-/
 
Well I hope that my reaction to them might make them at least think about putting their dogs on a lead in future they were quite shocked to be called 'stupid old sods' but clearly they were let off lightly. Not all us dog owners are ignorant cretins but no wonder we get tarred with the same brush!
 
What you also you should have told them is it that legally, the farmer can shoot their terrier for worrying the sheep. Has a marvellous effect when I tell people this who aren't taking me seriously!
 
Whilst talking about shooting sheep worrying dogs is one thing, the act itself is generally, something entirely different. I have shot dogs which were apparently feral, and I can assure everyone that it is a particularly distasteful job. The killing of a moving, often galloping, dog is rarely an immediate result. All so often the animal will be stopped in mid flight, but it will often be still alive, and whilst writhing about, sometimes with its back-end none operational, it will be screaming its head off, and the following shot, or shots will be administered on the grounds of being humane. It's rarely a one shot-dead-in-the-air event.

I once approached a stunningly beautiful GSD dog, and with his chum, he was busy at the back end of a ewe. They were eating her alive. I ran at them, screaming my head off, the second dog made off, but the GSD stood his ground. I REALLY didn't want to shoot him, but he wasn't prepared to give up his prize. I had the bright idea of being nice to him. He mistook my kindness for weakness, and came at me full tilt. At a few feet, he was dead in the air. It was awful, and to this day, I wish that there had been another way.

It isn't the dog. It's the blithering idiot owners. I've often thought of that GSD, God but he was something! He and I would have got on fine, had I not killed him.

Alec.
 
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