Read and Let's Discuss

Lots of city folk here I'm a Kiwi.

Sheep chasing dogs are shot, end of story.
No matter if it's the kid's collie from down the road or the old lady's foxy.

The mess dogs make ripping the throats out of sheep or the aborted lambs after the sheep have been chased gives farmers nightmares. Sheep are prey animals.

Old, sick farm animals are shot or get their throats cut, they do not get left to die in pain. Vets, if there are any nearby, go under the cost/benifit analyses and usually come out on the wrong side.

Keeping dogs under 100% control is the owners responsibility.

Just my 2 cents.

I am lost.  Didn't this guy use the dog as a guard dog?? With no formal training? It is a rescue, and used as a working dog.  His world doesn't include training the dog in depth and if the dog isn't performing, or performing improperly then it isn't contributing therefore it must go.  He doesn't seem to consider other options or take responsibility for the animal he left in charge while he was gone.  He doesn't even know if it was this dog to begin with.  He doesn't seem to be upset about the loss of the cat.  The wife being upset about the loss of her sheep is more the priority.  I guess if you drag the dog out back and shoot it in the head you save yourself the expense of a vet doing it.  No breed research (Lab/SharPei) No training.  The dog did what it was supposed to do.  Be a dog.  I guess it's a good thing he (the owner) wasn't talking about his elderly mother being no more use to society and maybe he should take *her* outback.....it's only a dog.  [:@]  Jules

I raise sheep.  I'm the first one in line to request that a dog harrassing sheep be taken care of.  But there's a few mitigating factors that I can see:

Only one animal was injured.  This points more to coy work to me.  They tend to split one off and kll and eat (usually leaving nothing, unless they are disturbed).  Dogs tend to play with and injure multiple members - dog mauling is horrendous, since they usually don't kill the majority of their victims immediately.  The individual killed was known to be a weirdo, making her a prime target.

I agree that the dog should be given a second chance since nothing actually points to the dog except opportunity.  The dog hasn't been known to be aggessive towards the stock - quite the opposite, it sounds like.  Dogs don't usually turn from protective to aggressive without warning. If coyotes are a problem it's time to take additional measures to protect the sheep other than leaving them with a dog of questionable background and trusting the obviously inadequate fencing.  I've sold several trained Marremma Sheepdogs to people with coyote problems and many different setups.  Real livestock guardian dogs work very well and in this case could save the life of a beloved pet.

These people are sick.  They 'suspect' the dog did it because he was around, so they immediatly want to shoot him and be done with it.  Thats just not right.