Posted by Helene on March 05, 2002 at 15:36:10:
In Reply to: Re: Dog attack on friends goat herd! posted by Karen on March 04, 2002 at 04:10:05:
It just totally irritates me that people get dogs and then they let them run wild all over the place. When we first moved into our place, our oldest son was into the 4-H Chick Exchange, we also had a few Game Birds (no we did not fight them)
The people who live behind us had 2 german shepards. Our birds were not free range at the time, we had a chicken coup, with a small door that could be opened, closed and locked that lead into a well built chicken wired in area for them so they could go outside when they wanted. Each night we would close and lock the hatch, and each morning we would open it. Needless to say these german shepards got into our birds so many times that we lost close to 70 I would say. The last time was just a pure masacare as they some how got into the small doorway and just thrashed the birds they didn't take them away except for two. ..Now there is nothing worse than seeing a 12 year old boy at the time who put all his blood into these birds walk in and find this mess. Oh he was so bad that he could not even go to school that day. Each time we went over to the neighboors house and told them what was happening, they appologized (when we found them home) and promised to keep them penned up. Well ofcourse that did not happen. The last time it happened, my husband was home, went straight over there, and as soon as the woman answered the door over walks both of her dogs, each with a dead chicken in their mouths. He demanded that she get rid of those dogs or he would do it for her. He also demanded that they pay for each and every bird. Believe it or not, they payed us over $300.00 for those birds, and got rid of the dogs immediatly.
Then wouldn't you know about 2 weeks later I find another big dog in our yard. I called the dog catcher and told them that if they did not come over and remove this dog I was going to shoot him...Their response..well go ahead and shoot it. So that is what we did.
The stink of it is..when people allow their animals to roam you cannot even let your own dog out on your own property!! So from that day forward, we find a dog in our yard that seems like a threat..it gets shot. (now we have a neighbor who's little pug will come over and play with our LGD on occassion..he is harmless) This is something I do not like to do, but I am not going to risk the lives of my livestock any further! That is the main reason we got our LGD. Now he 9 times out of 10 will stay on our side of the fence, but WILL NOT leave the property. If he did..he would be gone!!
I am sorry..I didn't mean to go on and on about this. It just gets me so mad, that someone takes responsiblilty enough to own an animal and will not take on the responsibility of taking care of it. I am so sorry for your friend, and you are right..I would have her call the vet and have him check out every one of her animals! Those poor goats, no one should have to go through this!! It is bad enough that goats and cattle and horses are subject to coyottee and other wild animal attacks, but we also have to worry about our neighboors dog. and what is wrong with these people, keeping that dog after it bit a person!! I swear.