How many dogs is "normal".... and how many are too many?

Chiffy

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I think normal families tend to have just one dog. Many country people have two or more.
Over the years I have had two and sometimes three, very occasionally four. These days I tend to have two of my chosen breed with an age gap between them and then a rescue.
I agree that once you start walking more than two, you do get looked at as if you are slightly mad. Occasionally I walk 5 and that is mad especially when the extra two are a lurcher and a mini dachshund!
 

Clodagh

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For some people one is too many and life for all would be better if they did not keep any. I am just hacked off by the neighbours dogs so feeling grumpy.

I agree with you there, I have to cope, just here on the farm, with poorly looked after and therefore irritating dogs.
 

Clodagh

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I think normal families tend to have just one dog. Many country people have two or more.
Over the years I have had two and sometimes three, very occasionally four. These days I tend to have two of my chosen breed with an age gap between them and then a rescue.
I agree that once you start walking more than two, you do get looked at as if you are slightly mad. Occasionally I walk 5 and that is mad especially when the extra two are a lurcher and a mini dachshund!

Now multiple well behaved dogs is understandable - but put a lurcher in the mix and you are bonkers!
 

{97702}

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I think normal families tend to have just one dog. Many country people have two or more.
Over the years I have had two and sometimes three, very occasionally four. These days I tend to have two of my chosen breed with an age gap between them and then a rescue.
I agree that once you start walking more than two, you do get looked at as if you are slightly mad. Occasionally I walk 5 and that is mad especially when the extra two are a lurcher and a mini dachshund!

But the lurcher and the mini dachshund are just adorable (as are your dogs of course!) so that is OK :) :)
 

Clodagh

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I am currently advertising on Facebook for a deer-free county where I can go and live. (please note, Millie has NEVER harmed a deer in her life!)

I am never owning another lurcher again

Enough said? :p

We were walking today and put up a group of fallow bucks. I said to OH this is when you really remember why you don't have lurchers...or spaniels. :)
 

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We were walking today and put up a group of fallow bucks. I said to OH this is when you really remember why you don't have lurchers...or spaniels. :)

God I still remember a few years ago, 8 or so fallow deer crossed our path..... all four dogs (2 lurchers, 2 greyhounds) disappeared! NO deer were harmed, the dogs did not fare so well - one of the greyhounds was Islay who was about 13 years old at the time, old habits die hard!
 

DabDab

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We were walking today and put up a group of fallow bucks. I said to OH this is when you really remember why you don't have lurchers...or spaniels. :)

My friend's Labrador once brought him a muntjack. It was alive and completely unharmed - presumably he had just come across it hiding in a ditch or something like they do and decided to take it back to his owner
 

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OMG I have got off lightly :eek: :eek: :eek: My lot are so inept they never catch anything (except, I have to admit, Amy catching a couple of grey squirrels when she was younger, before I could intervene.....) and thank goodness they have never brought me or been anywhere near catching a deer!

Actually I still remember the last hound of mine to catch a rabbit.... it was Islay just after I adopted her. in 2008 or 2009.....
 

CorvusCorax

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Two is enough lol. No deer around here but my front gate was open earlier and I spotted a cat outside before the dog did and ran over to the other side of the garden squealing HEEERE! OH GOOOD BOYYYY! to distract him. Both he and neighbours must think I am mental.

The other reprobate would have been gone :p
 

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Two is enough lol. No deer around here but my front gate was open earlier and I spotted a cat outside before the dog did and ran over to the other side of the garden squealing HEEERE! OH GOOOD BOYYYY! to distract him. Both he and neighbours must think I am mental.

The other reprobate would have been gone :p

I feel your pain..... there was ONE occasion where four greyhounds/lurchers saw a cat before I did in the days when the back garden wasn't fully fenced. I spent the rest of the evening bathing skinned pads on multiple paws, thank god the cat went up a tree.....
 

DabDab

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OMG I have got off lightly :eek::eek::eek: My lot are so inept they never catch anything (except, I have to admit, Amy catching a couple of grey squirrels when she was younger, before I could intervene.....) and thank goodness they have never brought me or been anywhere near catching a deer!

Actually I still remember the last hound of mine to catch a rabbit.... it was Islay just after I adopted her. in 2008 or 2009.....

Ah, sadly I cannot say the same. The first summer we were here there was a terrible case of myxomatosis in the local rabbit population and little Dee took it upon herself to limit the spread :eek:. Because of her size it was hard to catch her doing it too, so we usually found her just as she'd killed one :confused:. I don't know how many she despatched, but it was lots.....on the plus side though we haven't seen any myxi rabbits since and the neighbours say it's the first time they haven't seen myxi rabbits knocking around through summer in years.
 

planete

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I do walk three lurchers and a dachshund cross (all mine!) in deer country...all on leads. Not sensible at all but never boring. And s.d what the neighbours think. :p Life is really too short to worry about being normal.
 

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Ah, sadly I cannot say the same. The first summer we were here there was a terrible case of myxomatosis in the local rabbit population and little Dee took it upon herself to limit the spread :eek:. Because of her size it was hard to catch her doing it too, so we usually found her just as she'd killed one :confused:. I don't know how many she despatched, but it was lots.....on the plus side though we haven't seen any myxi rabbits since and the neighbours say it's the first time they haven't seen myxi rabbits knocking around through summer in years.

This will no doubt attract screams of condemnation but many many years ago when I had the whippets myxi was still prevalent in Oxfordshire..... if I came across a myxi rabbit I would notify the whippets who would despatch VERY quickly and cleanly (far better than greyhounds!) rather than let the poor rabbit have a long lingering death. I still believe that was the more humane option. That has to be 30 years ago now I think of it :eek:
 

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I do walk three lurchers and a dachshund cross (all mine!) in deer country...all on leads. Not sensible at all but never boring. And s.d what the neighbours think. :p Life is really too short to worry about being normal.

Believe me, I keep Millie on a lead wherever I know there are deer! Tonight was a walk in the forest area where there are never usually deer, and she disappeared after trails. I have learned from this.....
 

DabDab

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This will no doubt attract screams of condemnation but many many years ago when I had the whippets myxi was still prevalent in Oxfordshire..... if I came across a myxi rabbit I would notify the whippets who would despatch VERY quickly and cleanly (far better than greyhounds!) rather than let the poor rabbit have a long lingering death. I still believe that was the more humane option. That has to be 30 years ago now I think of it :eek:

No condemnation here - myxi is an horrible way to die
 

Clodagh

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My lurcher caught a lot of munties in her younger days. It was not to be encouraged, although I suspect four greys/grey sized lurchers would do a more efficient job that one whippet sized long dog. She was a nightmare. I do now really enjoy having dogs that ignore everything and would struggle to go back to the scanning the horizon walks.
 

twiggy2

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My current lurcher caught one muntjack, never caught anything before, she caught a hare the same week and that's it, I have to be very careful due to the red and sika deer being rife where I live. I can't let her off unless it's the stock fenced fields at home (she will jump wooden railed fences) or we drive into the city to walk her off leads in the parks and along the canal tracks.
No more long legs for me, the collies are so so much easier.
 

Chiffy

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I am interested that your whippets would dispatch a mixi rabbit Levrier. Neither my whippets nor lurchers would touch them.
Clodagh, I was out riding with my lurcher who set off after a muntjac. I found her standing on a track, no deer to be seen, but the whole of her back was ripped open looking like raw meat. It was hell getting her home. I thought she had ripped it on wire. When I told the vets , they thought she must have caught the muntjac by a back leg and it turned round and sunk it’s teeth in her. Apparently they have two very long jagged teeth. The vets did a brilliant job , so much stitching but she was broken coated so the scarring never showed.
I was always terrified of muntjac after that and my next dog was a Flatcoated Retriever that could be trained not to chase things!
 

Clodagh

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I am interested that your whippets would dispatch a mixi rabbit Levrier. Neither my whippets nor lurchers would touch them.
Clodagh, I was out riding with my lurcher who set off after a muntjac. I found her standing on a track, no deer to be seen, but the whole of her back was ripped open looking like raw meat. It was hell getting her home. I thought she had ripped it on wire. When I told the vets , they thought she must have caught the muntjac by a back leg and it turned round and sunk it’s teeth in her. Apparently they have two very long jagged teeth. The vets did a brilliant job , so much stitching but she was broken coated so the scarring never showed.
I was always terrified of muntjac after that and my next dog was a Flatcoated Retriever that could be trained not to chase things!

Sash had her hindquarter cut in half by a munty. The whole muscle was opened to the bone from stifle to knickers. I found her, collapsed and nearly bled out, in the horse paddock. THat was a Sunday afternoon and one day I was very grateful for insurance. She had 58 stitches. Munties have fangs, like little pigs.
 
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