Irresponsible Owners

[CorvusCorax]

I live on a public footpath and do my best to walk during quieter times, where eise/what else should I do? Like others, mine is fine given space, it's other people who let their dogs come right up in her face with no regard for their safety who are the problem.

 

[Clodagh]

I took poorly socialised puppy to the beach today. It was an all round positive experience. Thank fully no one had an off lead dog that was rude and I used leads/ whistle/ treats as needed to keep her from getting emotional. By the end we were walking past dogs off lead, very chilled out.
I suppose I could stick to my usual strategy of never going out in public, but she needs to be on the shooting field next year.

 

[Unicorn]

There are (off lead, allowed-to-run-up-to-whatever-they-like) dogs everywhere. You can't even avoid them by road walking or sticking to residential streets.

This. Mine is scared/reactive too. I don't have the luxury of living in splendid isolation, but try my hardest to walk in places with a low dog count. And even then we can't always avoid the oblivious idiots.

 

[I'm Dun]

My neighbours again. Their eldest child aged 15 has acquired a young lurcher, aged about 5 months now. So far in the month of having it I do not think that it has even had a collar on, let alone a lead. He was telling another neighbour that he fancied hare coursing with it, as it was a natural. My sheep are due to start lambing in 5 weeks time.

At least the ridgebacks seem to have been kept away from trouble after another neighbour really laid into the father about his irresponsible attitude to them running about out of control.

I hope you get lucky and the lurcher is like my working bred dog. He has zero interest in sheep. Couldnt care less. Rabbits/hares/foxes/squirrels and deer are another matter, but his interest in sheep is less than zero. Quite a lot of the drivey working lurcher types are only interested in specific things and given an outlet wont be an issue with livestock. Doesnt mitigate all the other issues or the legality or morality of it, but would mean your sheep are safe so fingers crossed for you.

 

[rabatsa]

My fear is that the lambs playing at running in groups will trigger the dogs chase instinct. There is only a sheep net fence between the properties in places.