Would You Say This Was Cruelty?

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Tia

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Just playing Devils Advocate here, but interested in your thoughts on this:

6 week old puppy taken from mother and placed in a field and left there. Fed once a day for the rest of its life and apart from the daily feeding ritual the dog has no further human contact. No dog house is offered however the dog can come and go as it pleases within the field and is free to go into the barn for shelter if wished.

Thoughts?
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Can it have contact with other dogs? I would worry about it being lonely. I'm too soft! I would admit, I prefer pups to be 7/8 weeks before they leave mummy, but that's how I was always taught.
 
No the dogs rarely have contact with other dogs except under certain situations, although often there will be another dog in another field doing the same thing.

This is a true account by the way - something that happens.
 
What does fttp mean? LOL!! Struggling here, it's only Sunday morning and too taxing for me
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This should cause some comments! Cruel - no not in the recognised sense because the dog is not being abused in any way. Certainly the RSPCA wouldn't think so because it was being fed and watered. But not a suitable home for a puppy imo, and would certainly never have sold a puppy to be kept like this, dogs are companion animals. To nit pick - unless the field was extremely well fenced said 6 week old puppy would probably find a way out anyway!!
 
Livestock Guardian Dogs. They protect sheep from wolves and bears.

Funnily enough they are called Akbash
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If it is being fed and kept healthy then no this is not cruelty as such however IMO cruelty could also be defined as not providing the best possible life for an animal - and in this case I would say it would be a pretty lonely life and waste when the animal could have interaction with other dogs or humans
 
No not at all. Thats presumably what the breed was born and bred to do...

not sure a chihuahua would cope
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but working dogs, yes
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I guess we would view it as brave; to them it is just thousands of years of breeding and instinct. They protect whatever it is they are taught to protect and will fight to the death. They kill wolves and have been known to kill bears, although bears being smarter tend not to become involved in these sorts of situations and are quite easily frightened off.

Once they kill the wolf, they eat it. In their original country, they are often left with their flock for many months at a time and are not fed; they kill any animal which comes into their territory and eat it.
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That is really quite amazing. Would they grow to be similar in size to a wolf?

Just out of curiosty, do you use a method like this to protect your horses? Or do your dogs act as both pets and guardians?
 
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No not at all

dogs dont need human contact if basic needs being met...

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Not much of a life though is it!

In the previous post about the pug puppy it was tied to a trampoline in the garden with all day and that's just plain wicked but if the pup was allowed free range and there was shelter available I'd say it was not necessarily cruel but not ideal by any means either.
 
But the dog is of a working breed?

when we go home to ireland we let the dogs out and thats it. we rarely see them apart from meal times.

where do they sleep? who knows, hedge? empty stable? dont know, dont care tbh, theyve survived this way for years.

sometimes round them up and do a spot of organised hunting, or ill spot them round and about when out on a hack.

they like it.

its the life they would prefer. minimal contact with me lol
 
I wouldent see it as cruel.It's no worse than leaving a dog outside in a kennel or gaurding a premises.Aslong as it's fed and watered i dont expect the dog will give a hoot where it lives.
 
Not at all. I'm sure the pup is having a ball.

I don't like to see outdoor dogs tied up to a chain, though. Growing up, all the farms by us had Shepherds tied to a long chain, and I never saw them have any human or dog contact, which is just wrong.
 
Our dogs, although they live outside, have great interaction with us and our horses. I am outside most of the time and they have free run of the farm both day and night. We do have a wolf problem and my young shepherd dog did try to take a couple of wolves on one time; she was almost killed in the process, so that was certainly one of the reasons for buying an Akbash this time around.

Akbash are generally much larger than wolves and they can easily take down an Elk and have been known to bring down moose aswell
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Very interesting dogs. Our puppy is being very well socialised with not only people but with many many dogs too - we can't risk her eating the neighbours or their pets.....
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I don't know about the breed you are talking about but I thought dogs were pack animals so I would say that keeping it on its own without another dog or a person to bond with is cruel IMO.

I don't think dogs NEED people but I do think pack animals need a pack so either another dog or a person... but I guess it is no different to keeping a horse on its own in a field and only visiting it once a day to feed it. Not ideal but used to be common place 10 to 15 years ago...

JMO though.
 
I presume you are talking about the Karabash/Kangal/Anatolian Shephard (also called Akbash) dog which I know a fair bit about. Knowing what I know about then breed then this situation is what they were bred for. This turkish breed is often taken away from the mother anywhere from 4-6 weeks and put in a working environment. They are dubbed to be the best livestock insurance policy you can have. They're not bothered about human/canine companionship and thrive on doing their job which is to protect. They can withstand harsh temperatures of either cold/hot and don't particularly bother about shelter.
In Turkey they are kept up in the mountains to look after a flock of sheep and are expected to stay there until the shephard returns which can be days at a time. They are also used in Africa to protect livestock from lions and hyena's. They are a tough, hardy breed that will take anything on to protects its flock.
They are not your typical working/pet dog in any respect.
 
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Karabash/Kangal/Anatolian Shephard (also called Akbash)

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These dogs are completely different breeds - they look nothing like each other. Mine is an Akbash, known by no other name - I think Akbash are the nicest looking out of all the breeds you have mentioned above.
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- take a 6 week pup of most guarding breeds and isolate it for all of it's early development and yes you will have a pretty fearsome (phsychotic ?) guard - natural ? - no I don't think so - and in my book most certainly cruel as it goes against the inherent need for social interaction that dogs have. Just look at the thousands of subtle ways of communicating that they display - that's because interaction with their own species is so important.

For natural dog behaviour you would need to look at how feral dogs behave - no where in the world do they deliberately choose isolation - and Akbash are no different in this respect. - it is man that engineers sitautions in order to produce extreme distrust and aggression - natural ? no - cruel - yes !.

P.S - Akbash in Turkish means 'White head' - the Karabash is basically the same dog but 'Karabash means 'black head' which is originally how the two varieties were split - this was also influenced by geographical differences in type within the remote regions where these dogs were found. Apart from colour Akbash tend to be lighter in frame but basically they are one and the same dog ( like the four varieties of my own breed - BSD ) - another term for the type of flock guard found in Turkey is Anatolian Shepherd Dog - this is NOT a different variety but a generic term for both types.
 
"where do they sleep? who knows, hedge? empty stable? dont know, dont care tbh"

.....nothing like being a responsible owner then ! ...shame on you .... they are your responsibility and you SHOULD care !!!.
 
*shrugs*
My dogs are 6 years old and 1 year old.

They have always reappeared every morning.
My family have kept the dogs like this since goodness knows when.
They go to bed too late and are up too early for me to find them.

If they didnt turn up/were injured one morning, then yes, id do something. When Tink had been spayed we tried to close her up at night, she barked all bloody night and the next night wouldnt come when she was called.

So they stay out.
 
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