Roaming Dogs Caught on Game Camera Several Times

[speckledhen]

Not that this is any help........but those with dogs and dog problems might find this interesting..........the origin of the phrase, " a dog is a man's best friend".

The case of Old Drum........

https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/education/olddrum/StoryofBurdenvHornsby

https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/MDH/EulogyoftheDog.pdf

Note this all took place in 1869, so is evidence that neighbors and their dogs have been causing each other problems for what seems like forever, yet aside from folks being responsible for their dogs, no good solution has ever been devised because people in the country with dogs tend to let them run wild (are not responsible). This and other cases like it are also what have lead to laws about how to deal with dogs and when you can and can't harm one. A tough thing to decide in the split second a person needs to make the decision to take lethal force and deal with the consequences later.

None of us are immune to the problem. Two days ago I looked out the window from where I am sitting now to see a Doberman and another large mutt "marking" the bushes of my front step, no more than 15' away from me (chickens normally would have been running around in the back yard, but that day were still cooped up). I think the dogs belong to someone who lives about half a mile away......so they were a long way from home. Dogs in the country do that. I was hoping they might tangle with the electric fence I have out back waiting for them, but they never got that far. They moved on to the next house. Haven't seen them since.

Short of shooting one, another option if you have some resources is to trap and hold them. That would work for curious dogs who keep coming around. An effective form of a live trap or box trap can be made from a dog kennel. Trap and hold them. If they matter, sooner or later the owner will come around to claim them and when he does, it will be him on the hot seat trying to explain why his dogs are on your place and what is he going to do about it. What complicates the situation and motivates some people is who got there first. If they were living there when you moved in and their dogs have been allowed to run free, they feel they have some type of roaming rights "grandfathered" in. Or just as bad are the newcomers who bring their dogs and cut em loose, thinking that is what dogs get to do in the country and seem to get bent out of shape when they find out otherwise.

S-Hen.......one additional piece of advice is to modify the fence where those dogs are shown to include a single hot electric wire on top of it. If they decide to try to climb that fence, they get zapped and zapped hard. As it is now, you have nothing preemptive to keep them on the outside where they belong. Better to get ahead of the curve now than deal with things after.

I remember when I was a kid living in a suburb of Atlanta, roaming male dogs were killing a shrub next to our mailbox. My dad put a hot wire in the bush and yelping was heard all over the county several times (different dogs, obviously, or one very stupid one, LOL). That fence is pretty far back from the house, surrounds over 2 acres, not sure how to hotwire it. They can go over in all sorts of places and we can't keep it clean of growth so not sure it would ever work.

We've been here going on 15 years now, had chickens for about 11 of those years. We have never lost a chicken to a dog (or any other predator) and hope to keep that record clean, though with all the wild predators we have here and the free ranging they do periodically, my number may be up at some point, I realize. But wild predators to me are different than domestic dogs who should never be free to roam onto anyone else's property. Wild predators are trying to eat. Dogs just kill for sport. Plus, of course, we have little control over the wild predators other than being sure the birds are locked up in a secure coop at night when most of them are hunting.

The county law has been reworded since the first time I read it, though it still says pretty much the same thing. The word "harassing" used to be in it. Now, it says "injured or damaged". But, if you read it as written now, it says you can kill a dog in defense of property, yourself or person or property of another from damage. Chickens are considered property, as is a dog. When would you defend a dead chicken? You defend LIVE chickens, right? So, taking it as it's written, I can kill a dog to defend my birds and keep them from being hurt/damaged/injured and it doesn't have to kill the chicken, as that woman said she read it. We know some folks have little reading comprehension or they just read it the way they want to.

I didn't see the dogs this a.m. If they were here, they were here before sunup. I was out earlier than normal, just in case. But, they may not come around for a couple of days because they got yelled at.

ETA: Read the case, very interesting!

 

[speckledhen]

Apparently, Ladyhawk's neighbor lost his male beagle to "lead poisoning" recently. Bound to happen since the pair was let out every night to run game and bay and keep everyone up. But, I asked her if he got another Rottie. She said they got a Belgian Malinois puppy. Geez. The man's roommate told her it wasn't pure Malinois. She said, "That's good." The roommate said, "Why is that?" She said, "No reason". I know the reason. She'd hate to have to kill a pure Malinois, but if it runs like the Rotties used to, it will also die of lead poisoning. Those dogs are a handful for an owner like that. They need extensive training or they're out of control.( @wekiva bird Robin, you'd be interested in this story, LOL)

 

[Trish1974]

Good for you, speckledhen! Stick to your guns (literally) and take those dogs out before they hurt your babies. I've had problems with roaming dogs and know firsthand how quick something bad can happen. Like you said, your chickens belong there, those dogs do not!

 

[speckledhen]

Good for you, speckledhen! Stick to your guns (literally) and take those dogs out before they hurt your babies. I've had problems with roaming dogs and know firsthand how quick something bad can happen. Like you said, your chickens belong there, those dogs do not!

Hey, Trish. Thanks for the support. Like I said, we are not likely to use deadly force unless they get into the perimeter. In the pasture, we may use a very loud deterrent to hopefully discourage them from returning. I did say it was a possibility that they are lost, however, that is only a minute possibility since they appear to be well-groomed and in good condition to me, from what I've observed. So, my conclusion is that they are being let out at sunup to run the area. If we can put up fencing on our meager income, ANYONE can do it, so there is ZERO excuse for this.

 

[Weehopper]

You did exactly the right thing. Good for you!

 

[speckledhen]

You did exactly the right thing. Good for you!

Thanks. Guess now we're on dog watch. Maybe we should dig a hole, too, just in case (not an easy task in this rock-and-root-ridden mountain land).

 

[ManawaGirl]

Oh Speckledhen. I wish I'd had your camera back in June. A neighbor who I'd never met has a dog that refuses to stay in it's fence. It had jumped the fence for the umpteenth time (not a nice dog - dominant, aggressive, my kids were scared of it), and it got in my coop. My coop has an actual door with a spring-thingy like on a storm door. Somehow the dog pushed it's way in. We heard the chickens cackling and making noise only to see the dog's rear end go in the coop. I yelled for my son to grab his BB gun, and by the time we were all making it to the coop the dog was running in the brush behind our property with our Buff Orp in it's mouth shaking her. He jumped back INTO his fenced in yard where my screaming brought out the owner. She managed to grab my sweet Buffy from the dog's mouth. Sadly Buffy died in my arms as the owner of the dog yelled nastiness at me for "Luring" her dog to my property. I have a permit, my chickens are inspected once a year by our local Animal Control. Although we didn't have pictures, we had witnesses. Her dog was cited for running at large, and she was cited for harboring a dangerous animal as it is now a killer. She protested and lost. We lost one of our ducks about a week later due to that dog attack - either the dog broke the duck's leg, or the duck's leg got broke during the mele' when the dog was in the coop, but either way, we lost a hen and a duck. So..... keep that predator cam on. They can help you big time. As for me, now the BB gun stays loaded next to the door. I don't want this to happen to my sweet coop again.

 

[ManawaGirl]

RP Clark - I noticed you are new and from Iowa! Where are you from? I'm in CB.

 

[speckledhen]

Oh Speckledhen. I wish I'd had your camera back in June. A neighbor who I'd never met has a dog that refuses to stay in it's fence. It had jumped the fence for the umpteenth time (not a nice dog - dominant, aggressive, my kids were scared of it), and it got in my coop. My coop has an actual door with a spring-thingy like on a storm door. Somehow the dog pushed it's way in. We heard the chickens cackling and making noise only to see the dog's rear end go in the coop. I yelled for my son to grab his BB gun, and by the time we were all making it to the coop the dog was running in the brush behind our property with our Buff Orp in it's mouth shaking her. He jumped back INTO his fenced in yard where my screaming brought out the owner. She managed to grab my sweet Buffy from the dog's mouth. Sadly Buffy died in my arms as the owner of the dog yelled nastiness at me for "Luring" her dog to my property. I have a permit, my chickens are inspected once a year by our local Animal Control. Although we didn't have pictures, we had witnesses. Her dog was cited for running at large, and she was cited for harboring a dangerous animal as it is now a killer. She protested and lost. We lost one of our ducks about a week later due to that dog attack - either the dog broke the duck's leg, or the duck's leg got broke during the mele' when the dog was in the coop, but either way, we lost a hen and a duck. So..... keep that predator cam on. They can help you big time. As for me, now the BB gun stays loaded next to the door. I don't want this to happen to my sweet coop again.

I'm so sorry! How awful for you and the poor birds. Thankfully, I need no permit. I wouldn't live where there were any restrictions on chickens and other livestock (though I can't have pigs, which is fine since I don't want them). One problem is that a BB gun might be construed as animal cruelty in some locations. They'd rather you shoot to kill than just hurt/discourage the dog. Your neighbor, sadly, is very typical of a lot of bad dog owners. They'll try to blame the chicken owner even if they can't get away from the fact that their dog was the killer. I'm so over it, I really am. Just reading stories like yours made my decision for me ages ago, that I would not allow any dog to slaughter my birds, period. Little dogs can be just as bad as large ones, too.

 

[ManawaGirl]

I live in a pretty 'odd' area. I'm literally across the road from a state park with a large lake, and then to my south is country but to my east and north is city. I am technically inside City Limits but I could throw a baseball into the county. Because my house and acreage sits inside city limits I have to get a Farm Permit. No big deal - it's $50, and a gentleman from the Animal Control comes out a once a year to make sure my birds are healthy and taken care of. This neighbor though, is 5 or 6 houses to my north, and based on the lack of control she has over her kids, it's no wonder she has trouble with her dog. She does have a chain link fence, but that dog can jump it in a heartbeat. It looks like a lab in the body with the markings of a shepherd. Anyhow, because of what her dog did to our coop, if there is another incident with that particular dog it will be destroyed. After she was ticketed on the two counts, she protested it in court. She lost. Anyhow, some how I became the bad guy because of all of it. *sigh*. In any event, I wished I would have had a trail cam BEFORE the dog attack, because we had seen her dog on my property at least 5-10 other times but never managed to get a picture of it. Had I had proof, then her dog would have been destroyed or re-homed PRIOR to the dog attack. After your super clear pics from your trail cam, I've been googling reviews on that brand. We only have motion detectors back there, but Bass Pro is 5 minutes away from us, and while they don't carry the Predator Cam brand, they do carry Moultrie and another brand called Spypoint.
Thankfully here in Iowa we have similar laws that protect the homeowner allowing the homeowner to shoot any dog killing/harassing on someone else's property.